


Glass Bodies

by jacklalonde



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Humanstuck, M/M, Zombiestuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 07:56:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/976338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacklalonde/pseuds/jacklalonde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He feels so dumb—he should be running. But he just doesn’t <em>care</em>. This is his life. Him standing out on this worn bridge that he’s so afraid of. He’s afraid of everything in his life, and looking out over the river and the trees he finally feels something that isn’t boredom and numbness and waiting for himself to become something more than he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glass Bodies

**Author's Note:**

> This took a lot longer than it should have.

Dave knows this isn’t a game he should be playing. He knows it as he steps out on the first wooden tie of the railroad track; a little decayed but still in tact. It doesn’t snap when he steps on it, which he takes as a good sign. Terezi is getting impatient behind him, making small sounds of annoyance that are most likely the cause for her to ask Gamzee for the time again, probably thinking _how could the train be late? On tonight of all nights?_ Dave was thinking that a couple minutes ago, but now that his heart is thrumming along to the alcohol in his system he’s starting to doubt if he’s actually going to do this.  
It’s a little tradition. There’d be more people here if it weren’t November, and if the air wasn’t so chilled so that they have to wear jackets. Dave’s never been one for an audience anyway, and he’s always liked the cold air in his lungs.  
It’s called Rooster, because it’s the messed up version of Chicken that they play on the train tracks. That and because they all laughed their asses off when the name was invented. They’re all insane for doing it, willingly risking their lives just for a little excitement, but that’s why it’s played when everyone is drunk.  
Dave turns back to them, Terezi’s glasses catching the moonlight and nearly blinding him. Gamzee lifts his lips a little in a droopy smile and gives a thumbs up, obviously too hammered to get out the words. The two of them are leaning against two oaks, Gamzee’s shaggy hair falling into his eyes and his head slumped to the side. Dave turns away from them again.

The idea of Rooster is when the train is coming right at you—thundering down the tracks, carrying military weapons to all sorts of Settlements— you don’t jump out of the way. You run headfirst towards the lights moving at you. Then you jump. If you’re lucky.  
“So what, it’s not coming?” Dave asks, not sounding too relieved, to which Terezi groans again. Dave walks a little ways, kicking some of the stale grass that’s wedged between the tracks, looking up out over the bridge in front of him. A huge, rusty red shell of what it was fifty years ago when people actually cared about it. But still standing. A little bit like himself, Dave thinks, looking up at the beginning of its frame. A soldier of its own kind.  
Rust Bridge is the only place by the Settlement where border police didn’t bother patrolling, backed so far into the woods. This was where kids could actually be as stupid as they all felt, where they could get so drunk that their friends would have to literally drag them back home and past watchful eyes that patrolled for creatures unlike them. This was where Dave felt the most comfortable, he decides, standing at the beginning of the bridge.  
To his left, the moon is full, hovering in the distance right over the canyon. Rust Bridge looks bigger than he remembers, even though he’s stood in this same spot a week ago. But he was sober then, and he couldn’t appreciate the blurry glory that is the view from up here. The forest drops off completely to a sheer cliff that he’s standing on the edge of, the gives way to a massive river a hundred feet below. The river snakes between mountains in the distance, lined with trees and giving off the gentle hum of moving water. It calls Dave to it, the moon beckoning him to just do it, just face your goddamn fears.  
“Dave, what in hell are you doing,” Terezi shouts. They’re fifteen feet behind him now, as Dave takes his first few steps onto the bridge.  
“Wouldn’t you love to know,” Dave drawls back, poking fun at Terezi’s blindness, as he always does. She’s a good friend, he tries to think, she’ll get it. He hears her whisper to Gamzee “so what is he actually doing,” to which Gamzee actually whispers back and causes Terezi’s laugh to raise high into the night. He doesn’t want to think of what Gamzee might have mumbled out. Dave laughs a little to himself instead, putting his hands out for balance, thinking how dumb it is that they only like each other when they’re drunk.  
Another ten steps and Dave has completely cleared the drop, standing only on the small wooden footsteps of the tracks. He can see the supports below him, cutting through the moving water, and the tracks ahead. If he wanted to, he could just drop off the edge a few feet away, his bones would snap at the bottom of the river, shattered among the rocks on the bottom. He knits his eyebrows together. That was morbid. He moves forward, starting to hum a few chords of a song to himself over and over, avoiding the thought he just had and how it made his heart pound. He’s almost dancing to his own little song over the river.  
“Hey, dumbass, you’re drunk. Come on back.” Terezi shouts over to him. He ignores her, stepping forward again. Was he always this graceful? He might actually be dancing out here.  
“It’ll be a motherfuckin’ miracle if he can get back here,” Gamzee says, and Dave laughs loudly.  
“I’m fine, see?” Dave feels the adrenaline of what he’s actually doing pulse through him and into his manic smile. He jumps forward a couple more times and can almost hear Gamzee’s laughing behind him, Terezi then asking to explain. Then Dave whips his head straight from where it was locked on the moon, hearing it. The unmistakable noise of a train whistle.  
“Dave, come on.” Terezi shouts over. Dave feels his numb limbs raise in victory. This is what they came for, isn’t it? He’s not leaving now.  
“Hey Strider, time to head back. Terezi’s getting all motherfuckin’ crazy over this.” Dave acts like he’s walking a tightrope, walking forward, turning with what he thinks is ballerina grace, and then turning back. The whistle blows again. He feels so dumb—he should be running. But he just doesn’t care. This is his life. Him standing out on this worn bridge that he’s so afraid of. He’s afraid of everything in his life, and looking out over the river and the trees he finally feels something that isn’t boredom and numbness and waiting for himself to become something more than he is.  
“DAVE!” Gamzee’s never yelled in front of Dave. Dave spins around just as the screaming hits his ears. Five figures, black as night against the shadows, have come out of the brush where Dave was standing only a minute ago. The Bodies sprint at animal speed towards his friends.  
He doesn’t know if it’s real, but then Terezi is screaming and using her cane to flail and stab wildly as the Body grabs hold of her and tears it’s clawed hands into her body. Dave stares, a scream rising to his throat as the pair of glowing green eyes rotate to look at him.  
Gamzee is crying out to Dave one more time before his head is ripped clean off by a larger Body, its skin torn and rotten and letting out a guttural screech after the rest of Gamzee finds the ground. The bile is coming up Dave’s throat along with the alcohol and he can feel the vibration of the train coming down the track behind him. The bodies at the end of the bridge rise to their full height, green eyes falling on him and teeth gnashing. He can’t move. His friends are being eaten in front of him by the others and his life is about to end one way or another.  
His two options of death are right in front of him. He could turn and run towards the train, be the Rooster, end his life quickly and without an alcohol-tinted thought. That almost makes him laugh hysterically through the terror coursing though him. He could kill the creatures too I they decide to run after him. He could run toward the Bodies and just give them their damn meal. Just give in to what’s been hunting him his entire life. The vibrations are getting worse, and he’s shaking, and then a massive horn echoes into his ears. He sees the green eyes flicker and then grow slightly bigger as they take off towards him.  
And then Dave’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He fumbles to get it out, the ground is shaking so badly. He doesn’t know why he checks the message, just hoping for some sort of closure, maybe.  
John: Hey. You’re probably drunk right now, but stay safe. Okay?  
Dave can feel the spotlight of the train on the side of his face and the sound of growling and the clicking of train wheels in both ears. But all he can see is John, he can see him everywhere, his mouth moving into a tiny whisper telling him stay safe. He apologizes to John beforehand. He wishes he could think of anything better to say as a goodbye. Dave glances below him. That water looks inviting.  
He takes the few steps to his left, vaults the railing to keep him from doing this and jumps, gripping his phone in one of his outstretched hands, sucking in his last breath and waiting for his glass body to shatter.

 

And then suddenly it’s over, his head is breaking the surface of the water and his lungs gasp for their first breath and his hair is stuck to his face. His feet didn’t even brush the bottom on the river. He’s alive. And freezing.  
Dave starts to tread water, gasping still, his breath uneven. His eyes open through the droplets, getting his first look around himself. He’s floating downstream, slower than he would have imagined from up on the bridge, and if he paddles a little to his right he should make it to the shore in minutes.  
It is so cold. The November chill to the air has become early January in the water, and through his soaking clothes he can feel the water make his lungs tighten. He starts paddling faster, the need for warmth or just something other than cold driving him towards the shore.  
Gamzee and Terezi are dead. The sudden thought of that sobers him up completely with the water. His paddling falters and he heaves out one sob, then a giant stroke towards shore starts to chastise himself for it. They were all so stupid to go out, so stupid to get drunk off border of the Settlement and so stupid to not bring guns. Honestly, who goes off the Settlement _without guns_? Dave guesses it’d been so long since an attack they all just thought they had some sort of force field around them, from the death that used to go on years ago.  
But Dave can’t let go of the fact that it’s his fault. If it weren’t for him being drunk and a Rooster he could have saved them all.  
People die all the time in the Settlement, mostly from sickness they don’t have a cure for, but also from the destruction of themselves. And a few years ago people were dying from Body attacks all the time. But it was never anyone close. It was never any one of his friends or anyone in school. It was never the people that Dave confided in, that he drank with, that he _knew_. And he failed to save them. Dave doesn’t want to think about what he would have to tell the police, what it would do to his training. If he can even get back.  
Reaching shore, Dave hauls himself out of the water and pants for a couple moments. He’s lost his phone somewhere in the water, but it’s not like it would have worked anyway after being waterlogged. The text that now saved his life is gone forever, drowned in the river and probably being carried away and nibbled at by fish at the bottom.  
He pulls dripping wet hair out of his eyes. John. John saved him. He broke him out of his full body terror with the timing of something that was probably an offhand text that wasn’t meant to be anything. If it wasn’t for that, he would have killed himself. What an idea. His last thought could have been about a text from his best friend.

He’s a good two hour trek from home, and that doesn’t include climbing time. The sheer incline of the cliff by the bridge will take time to scale. Even then, Bodies might be all over the scene, enjoying their new feast of the insides of his friends. The thought makes Dave shudder, and then tighten his jaw. Now wasn’t the time for feeling sorry for them, or for himself. He needs to move his puppet limbs and hope for the best. Even if that seems impossible with how damn cold he is by the first few steps. He takes of his jacket and puts it around his waist, shivering.  
Traveling through Body country is like weaving through a maze of booby traps. Dave knows what bodies are like—he knows what he’s learned, at least. His textbook mind jams and he forgets almost everything he’s learned. They tend to stay in groups and are attracted to loud noises, so sticking close to the trees and praying that his footsteps aren’t too loud is all her can really think of doing. He reaches the cliff within an hour, and thank god he took that rock climbing training session last year. His hands find crevices in the rock without thought, and his feet soon follow. When he’s reaching the top he feels his eyes flicker down and all the rest of the way up he whispers a mantra of “fuck, oh fuck, fuck” and it helps, somehow. Each cuss is taking him higher, ripping each memory of Gamzee and Terezi’s gory carcasses out of his mind. When he reaches the top, his fingertips are bleeding from the sharp points and his jeans are starting to dry out. As a way of celebration he looks out over the edge, seeing where he came from, Rust Bridge a thousand feet to his left. At least he has a general direction of where he’s headed. He doesn’t know where the bodies that ate his friends are, but he hopes that they aren’t anywhere near him.  
Dave hikes through the dark and the trees until he hears footsteps crunching leaves under their feet. He reacts on instinct, wrapping himself around a tree, heart hammering, thinking “I did all that climbing for nothing.” He waits for the signature sound of grunting and groaning, the Bodies, sniffing around for the smell of his blood. Instead he hears the cocking of a gun. Dave tips his head against the tree in relief. Then, as he’s practiced all through the safety classes in school his entire life, he moves out into the open between the trees and makes an X over his head with his fists. It’s the signal taught to use in emergencies. If the border police don’t know you’re human, they’ll shoot.  
Dave only stands there for half a second before the floodlight beam blinds him, and more guns are leveled at him.  
“Who are you,” a voice shouts. Dave has to close his eyes against the harsh light.  
“Dave Strider.” he shouts back. He’s usually a jokester with these guys, even a flirt sometimes, but he thinks he has an excuse to why he’s not feeling like himself right now.  
He hears someone say “that’s Bro Strider’s kid” and then the floodlight is turned away from him. Dave finally lowers his arms and heads towards the Wall, a tall man with a balding head coming to meet him.  
“What the hell were you doing out there, kid? How did you get out?” Dave tries to tell them that he climbed the whole damn thing, what are you going to do about it, but his throat locks and his limbs can barely hold themselves up. The man sees and his face changes completely, and puts his hand on Dave’s shoulder in silence. He leads him over to the Wall. A crowd of officers give wary glances to what must look like a scratched up, droopy eyed excuse for a corpse. A couple of radios make scratchy calls to one another in the silence as he passes.  
Inside the wall, Dave is met with silence, which throws him off. He has to remind himself it’s probably three in the morning by now. The officer, still holding his shoulder, picks up his radio and says “could someone get General Egbert down to the station,” before sighing deeply and steering Dave in the direction of the police headquarters. Great. They’re calling in John’s Dad. If he hadn’t known it before, he now knows he’s in deep.  
Dave gets a little glimpse into the training grounds as he’s walked through the door to the station. He’s never seen it so empty. Even before lights out he would be able to hear them in the shooting range, and without the stream of training soldiers he feels like he really is on his own. The sky is inky black like dripping ink, and it’s so dark it’s like the entire world is already mourning Gamzee and Terezi, and Dave hasn’t even told anyone yet.

Twenty minutes of sitting in a bright room alone with the officer in the early hours of the morning is all that’s needed to set Dave into a rage. He just sits there, his feet planted to the ground, seething. He can’t even open his mouth for fear that he’ll cry or start screaming. The officer tries asking him what happened again, but Dave just stares at his dirt-caked shoes. The only thing that breaks him out of his teeth-grinding, unbearable fume is the sound of the door opening and Mr. Egbert walking into the room. His police jacket is only halfway up his left arm and his white hat is almost falling off his scruffy black hair. If Dave was able to open his dry mouth, he would want to apologize for having him come to the station at 3:30 in the morning. He doesn’t get much time off as it is.  
The door doesn’t close all the way before another figure in a black coat comes through, his hair matching his fathers. Dave makes a tiny noise that comes with Dave’s thoughts of “oh god, not now.” John Egbert turns and locks eyes with Dave, his eyes wide and nervous, and he looks down to Dave’s bloody fingers that are gripping the edge of the table.  
“What happened,” John barely whispers, before the balding officer tells them both to have a seat.  
“Maybe now you’ll want to tell us what you were doing out of borders at this hour.” Dave looks as John’s fiddling hands in his lap, then down at the table, and tells them.

They don’t dwell and grieve over Terezi and Gamzee, because this is their lives now, but John raises a hand to his mouth halfway through the story in disbelief. Dave only leaves out two parts—the part about the text and the fact that he was drunk. He doesn’t think that it’d be good for Rose Lalonde’s black market if Dave said they were selling beer to minors. He doesn’t know why he leaves out the text. It’s not like he sees John as his guardian angel or something. He just doesn’t want the officer and Mr. Egbert to look at him like he’s crazy, thinking _what kind of kid wouldn’t imagine jumping until thinking of his best friend?_ He doesn’t want the chance of John thinking that, either.

They wrap him in a blanket for possible chances of hypothermia from the river, and then send him home with John. Mr. Egbert stays to prepare a radio announcement for everyone about the kids that passed by the old bridge. He looks tired, bent over his wooden desk in the corner of the station. Dave wishes they could have let him sleep, and just let Dave sit there angrily. The other officer radios for a couple officials to be sent to patrol the only unguarded part of the Settlement. The local kids will hate Dave for a while. Dave clenches his teeth together, already imagining it. Their last chance at freedom beyond the wall was gone thanks to him.  
Dave and John don’t say anything on the say back, and John just sticks his hands in his pockets and keeps walking when Dave says he can walk fine on his own. They arrive at John’s house just as the sky turns form ink black to a hint of pink, and Dave opens the door and walks up to his room without a word. He can almost feel John’s eyes watching him move up the steps in the stillness. It’s comforting for about half a second, but then it just makes him angry again. He should’ve brought a gun. He could have saved them. He could have just let the stupid train hit him. He could have.  
There’s the sound of John’s door closing down the hall and Dave doesn’t take the blanket off of himself. He just throws himself down on his bed, hides his face, and waits until he blacks out.

 

The sun is rising when Dave wakes up sweating. The first thing he thinks of is his brother. As is routine. “That’s Bro Strider’s boy,” a voice whispers in the back of his mind. Bro Strider’s boy, the orphan left after his only relative went missing. Gone on a Hunt and went missing during the night. They made a radio broadcast about it when the rest of the Hunt returned, six months ago, and Dave never heard it. He stuck his head between his new pillows in the Egbert’s spare room when it aired and wished that nothing was happening, that the world would stop turning and that he could just step off for a while. Because he knew it was doing to be hard to keep being himself after Bro left. His first time walking in town after that was a nightmare—full of sad little smiles thrown his way from people he’s never met and the whispering of “that was Bro Strider’s boy”. Dave tries to quell the anger boiling up to his surface. There’s no reason for them to say was. Bro knows how to take care of himself. He’s smarter than the whole damn Settlement put together. They don’t even know if he’s dead. And Dave will be damned if he doesn’t find out for himself.  
The next thought as he rises out of bed is a better one. He has his last training session before his first Hunt tomorrow. That’s what he, Terezi and Gamzee were celebrating. _Look at Dave, a big ol’ motherfuckin’ Rooster now. Gonna be the next colonel after he comes back with a Body’s head on a stick._ There’s a second where a flashback of Gamzee’s head lying on the ground and a pair of green eyes turning to look at Dave triggers a cold sweat and Dave sheds his shock blanket cocoon. He might as well get an early start on his day. Maybe he’ll even come early to training and prove just how big of a Rooster he really is. Ignoring the pain that stabs his heart every few moments. Running right for the train.

He decides he wants to look his best, to prove that absolutely nothing is wrong; that there are no bags under his eyes, and he did not just survive a hundred foot fall the night before. As he takes a shower he wonders if John’s awake yet, then shakes himself out of it. Of course he isn’t, it’s like six in the morning. If he was crazy enough to wake up in the early hours of the morning to follow his dad, he’s probably going to be trying to catch up on lost sleep before training starts. Even Colonel John Egbert needs sleep sometimes.  
The title still makes Dave laugh, the lukewarm water slipping over his face.  
Being the son of one of the main generals of the Settlement obviously gave John the advantage, but it was also how seriously he took his job that got him where he is. When the Settlement was still new and all the other little kids were unaccustomed and confused, John was already turning into a soldier. He even used to stand next to his father, arms behind his back and head tall, just like him. It was like he was bred for this. He was bred to make his way up the ranks until he was his father’s right hand man at thirteen, and a colonel by fifteen. He was the first to be recruited into the Hunt tomorrow, which makes Dave want to both pat his friend on the back and rip out his throat.  
Living with John, Dave’s been exposed to the life of two people working to maintain order in a place like this. It’s full of them being called in at early hours of the morning because a hoard of bodies have manifested and they need more ammo, being called in because someone’s cat ran away, or really for anything else. Spilling a glass of water could trigger someone in the Settlement—they’re all that tense after years stuck in here.

Dave looks presentable, putting on his regulation uniform. It’s apparently essential to training, but he thinks the officers just use the uniforms to remind themselves that there’s going to be a next generation of people who actually try and keep the Settlement going.  
He used to think it was ridiculous. The matching navy jackets just seemed a little _much_ , and made all the beginning trainees look like some sort of gangly, chubby-faced gang. Which is a little bit what they are—you can pick out a Hunter in a crowd just by a glance. Except in the winter, of course, when they can actually bring their coats to training. Dave sighs in relief, pulling Bro’s red hoodie over his jacket. It’s too big for him but it also has the potential to be freezing today, so Dave wears it anyway. He finds his shades on his dresser and puts them on, thinking that if he’d worn them last night, they’d be in the bottom of the river right now. Thank goodness Terezi couldn’t see his eyes and that Gamzee didn’t give a fuck. As he turns to put on his boots, he thinks he sees green eyes in the reflection of his glasses, but it’s just a passing pickup. He waits for his heart to calm.  
He laces up his boots and shuts his bedroom door with a tiny click, praying it doesn’t wake up the others, their doors still closed. Dave leaves the house after grabbing a couple carrots off the counter and telling himself he’ll buy Mr. Egbert an entire bagful as an apology for last night. He needs to keep up this nonchalant mood for the rest of the day. Accept condolences when people give them after the announcement at noon and then give some of his own to Gamzee and Terezi’s parents. Dave picks up his pace, trying to put some sort of energy into his step. Having a plan of what he’s going to do calms him down a little, and lets him enjoy the sound of himself chomping down the carrots and the crisp November air. He silently wishes for apples instead of the less-satisfying substitute, but they ran out of their last bag last week. Winter means vegetables, and he’s going to have to accept that.

The training grounds are filled, Dave sees after he walks all the way there. But instead of the navy jackets and tan pants, tall figures in black jackets litter the entire yard. It must be early-morning training for the police, though Dave doesn’t hear any noises of combat. He doesn’t travel too close to the fence so as to hear what they’re saying, but they’re all having a discussion about something. Dave feels selfish that he thinks they might be talking about Terezi and Gamzee. He thinks he sees a woman on the edge of the group turn to look at him, so he spins away from the chain-linked gate and jogs back to town. Not many of the shops are open, just a couple of people surrounded by trash can fires making small talk in the morning. Dave hears the sound of cattle in the pastures and a baby crying in the distance. Dave reaches inside the pocket of his khakis, looking for his phone, and he groans when he remembers. He makes a sudden turn to take him to the neighborhoods, headed towards the house of the only person he can imagine standing to see right now.  
Jade Harley answers the door, her pajamas covered in little multi-colored squids and her black hair pulled into a ponytail high on her head. She gives a tiny sleepy smile as the door opens. Dave guffaws after a second.  
“The Squiddles? Really?” Dave scrunches his nose playfully. Jade rolls her eyes and pushes her large glasses up her nose.  
“They’re warm, genius.” She moves a little and Dave steps inside. He walks into her living room, white walls covered by the stuffed heads of everything Jade’s Grandfather has ever shot. He’s one of the best gunmen in the Settlement; he’s good friends with Mr. Egbert and everyone on the police, so it’s obvious that he and Jade are high in the ranks. Dave looks up. It’s quite the collection, rising high toward the ceiling, mouths of sharp-toothed beasts opened in a silent scream. There’s a rumor in town that her Grandfather keeps the heads of Bodies he’s killed in his room. Jade’s never denied it.  
“You’re up early,” Dave says, finishing his last carrot. He wipes his cold hands on his pants. “I thought I’d have to come back later.”  
“Yeah, well. Hunt’s tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep for a while.”  
“You excited?” Dave turns toward her. She’s just finished a yawn, and she stretches her neck as she answers.  
“Super.” Jade smiles over to him, looking half her age in those stupid Squiddles pajamas. Dave tries to smile back, but the stupid memories from the night before creep up on him, threatening to grab him.  
“Oh, I forgot,” Jade says. Dave looks down from where he’s started looking back up at her extravagant walls again. “Sorry I couldn’t come last night.”  
 _Oh no._  
“I mean, I know I don’t drink, and it was cold, but still—hey, are you okay?” Dave isn’t okay. He goes and sits on her couch, thinking _Jade could have died too. I could have killed Jade._ Another one of his friends could have been lying on the ground, stone cold while he stood there and watched. He gives in and runs a hand through his hair, tears welling up behind his shades.  
“It’s actually a damn good thing you didn’t come last night.” He heaves in a breath.  
“What?”  
He hears the train’s whistle in his mind. The ground might be shaking underneath him again, or maybe it’s just his heart pulsing.  
“We got ambushed by Bodies. Gam and Terezi are dead.” Dave hears the whir of their generator in the silence. He could have bullshitted his way through an excuse, but he knows Jade would have seen through it. She would have seen the stiff way he held himself, the way that he wouldn’t have been able to speak.  
“Oh, Dave.” He feels her arms hook around his neck behind him as he sits on the couch in what will settle for an embrace. He closes his eyes, setting his jaw. “You don’t have to talk about it, but just know I’m sorry, okay?” Dave doesn’t respond. She didn’t know Gamzee and Terezi that well, but she knows them enough for Dave to hear her sniffle. The generator whirs. They stay like that.  
“You want breakfast?” She whispers. Dave clears the lump in his throat.  
“I took some carrots,”  
“That’s not much of a breakfast.” She pauses. “We still have a couple apples,” and somehow something so simple lifts Dave’s heavy spirit and his limbs as he rises. And that’s the end of it. They eat, Jade watching him carefully, guiding him with her eyes through every bite.  
Dave asks her if she can help him with a new phone, and explains that he lost it in the river. She just bites her upper lip and nods, so obviously wanting him to tell her more. He will, but right now he kind of feels like he needs his blanket back from the cold sweat that’s beading on the back of his neck. She says they’ll program it after training, and excuses herself to go get dressed.  
While she’s gone, Dave sits at her counter, finishing his apple down to the core. He glances out a window, the Wall barely visible in the distance. Dave tries to think of a place where there were never Bodies, a place where they wouldn’t need generators or where they could eat apples in the winter. But he finds it impossible. Those things were always there for Dave, even if his Bro might have known otherwise. He used to tell him about times when cities were full of people all the time, and that there was no need for walls to be put up around pockets of civilizations. Dave finds himself unable to finish his scenario of going to a school where the teachers never asked them to enroll in Hunter training. Those nightmarish green eyes always snake back into his mind, Bro’s body peeling dead skin or his fingers turning to curled claws or his teeth sharpening to a point when he smiles. John flickers into his imagination, gun in hand, telling him to run. He hears Jade’s footsteps on the stairs and Dave downs his glass of water, wishing he could clear his mind.  
“Let’s go,” Jade says, clad in the same jacket Dave is wearing under his sweatshirt. She’s brought a pair of green mittens with her and a pair of earmuffs, and she puts on an unzipped coat over herself, turning up the collar. She gives a small smile and Dave looks down at her with fondness. She looks at the green earmuffs and frowns, going to toss them on the couch. Dave laughs a little.  
“Wait.” He goes and takes the earmuffs from her, putting them on his head and pouting until Jade breaks her poker face and cracks up. They are pretty comfortable, and everyone in training has heard him ramble about his ironic enjoyment of things before. Jade gives him a thumbs up and murmurs ‘so cool’, and he nods to himself in the mirror by the door before following her into the chill.

 

Their trainer is a woman with dark skin, tall and intimidating under the hat that looks like Mr. Egbert’s but a darker, muddier color. Dave doesn’t remember her name, seeing as she’s new and most of the lecture part of training he either makes faces toward Egbert or stares past the fence and into the trees. As they all come in for training she checks their names off a list without a word. They line up against the fence first, and Dave has done this so many times that he now stands without thinking.  
The run back and forth across the field until they’re winded, then forced to run again. The earmuffs fall off mid-sprint and Dave gives them back to Jade with a little frown, and she playfully reprimands him for being careless with her possessions.  
They run their entitled amount of lengths before their name is called and they can sit it out until everyone else is done. As Dave catches his breath, he glances out at the remaining runners and realizes that John is one of the last people left. He’s even more surprised to see that John is looking directly at him. Dave shrugs a little to him, mouthing “late?” to him. John nods mid-jog, then touches the fence and takes off in the direction he came.  
Once everyone is done, they grab their guns and head over to the shooting range. They change the target positions every day, and on days when they feel like adding excitement they set up the slow moving automatic ones that walk back and forth over the shooting range. Even though the Hunters have already been chosen, it still looks like the twelve-year-olds are trying to show off, jamming the dummies with the butts of their guns with little prepubescent grunts. Dave feels a little embarrassed for them, and then feels embarrassed for himself when he used to go through training like that. Bro was a silent killer, and he always complained to Dave that his battle noises were too loud and that he needed to work on them. Dave did, of course, but all of Dave’s skills put together wouldn’t amount to half of Bro’s.  
Dave waves John over after his first run at the targets, wanting to know what could make Colonal J. Egbert late for his training, but he just sticks his mouth in a straight line and goes to the shooting range. Dave is a little struck by it, thinking _I saw my friends die last night, and you can’t even come say hello?_ It stings, but hiding behind his shades he probably has the same default expression as always.  
It’s Dave’s turn for drills, and he does the stupid ladders holding his gun and does a bunch of shots that he could probably do in his sleep. Guns are alright, but everyone knows that a Strider’s weapon is always a sword. For the next drill he chooses a sword and duels an instructor, who’s covered head to toe in protective armor from the damage he knows that Dave can do. While he’s deflecting shots and advancing towards the masked face, he thinks about why in hell he didn’t bring a sword last night. With a weapon in his hand he becomes a different person, who he should be all the time, fearless and unafraid. But without it he’ll freeze on the middle of a bridge and almost kill himself out of fear.  
He advances out of anger, a cry coming out of him as he throws himself into it. Bro would have shook his head.  
Dave’s sword touches the armor and he stops, thankful. Just as he’s putting down the sword, his name is called on the other end of the field. He gives his dueling partner a little nod and takes off toward the voice. There on the other side of the field, there’s black-hat lady, smoking a cigarette and blowing it out in tiny puffs as she waits. It hits Dave and he giggles while he’s running, remembering he and John’s nickname that they came up for her when she first became their trainer a year ago. During the winter they built a snowman outside the training center and she walked by, sticking her cigarette in the place of a nose without a word. John had been terrified but Dave was laughing hysterically, and then the nickname Snowman stuck for a couple months. He watches a figure come up to stand next to Snowman and—his mood falls. Mr. Egbert stands by the entrance to the training grounds. Under his hat Dave can’t see his expression, and Snowman looks disdainfully down at Dave as he comes jogging up.  
“What’s going on,” Dave asks, trying to keep his voice even. He thinks for half a second that he might know what is about to happen, but he doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to realize it.  
“Now Dave, what happened to you last night was what we categorize as traumatic.” Dave wants to scream in her slim face already, right in those cat-like eyes. _No shit, really? Seeing your friends die categorizes as a minor disturbance that should be easy to get over within a couple of hours._  
“And we were told that you were having some troubles coping, so we’re giving you some time to recover before we send you out on a Hunt.” Dave stares, and then flicks his eyes to Mr. Egbert. His stupid white hat keeps his face hidden as he looks down at the ground, and Dave wants to tear it off his head and see if he’s smiling behind it.  
“The next Hunt isn’t for another two months,” Dave finds himself saying. Snowman shrugs, a strong breeze whipping against both of their sides. Dave’s heart is pounding.  
“I have to go on this Hunt,” Dave says, sounding too worried that he thinks they may suspect something. Bro could be waiting for him right now, and if he has to wait another _two months…_  
“We’re doing what’s best for you,” Mr. Egbert says, and Dave sees he’s finally looking at him. “I’m very proud of how hard you’ve worked for this, and in a couple months I know you’ll be first in command,” He and Dave both know that isn’t true. He’ll always put John first, like he always has. Train your son to be better than you, then use him to do the things you never could. It isn’t something that Dave, and everyone else, has had trouble figuring out. John is good with combat, but Dave is better. He’s a Strider. He’s Bro Strider’s boy.  
“I’m going on that Hunt.” Dave says softly. Both the adults just look at him, looking down at him over their noses like he’s a child when he’s really almost both their height.  
“Let me make this clear, Strider.” The woman points a finger to his face. It’s too manicured to have ever touched a sword. She’s probably a sham herself. Dave doesn’t back down.  
“Both of you, calm down.” Mr. Egbert states, but Snowman seems to be glaring right through Dave’s shades.  
“Two of your friends died in front of you last night, and you come back a staggering mess. Things out there aren’t going to be like that. Bodies will go after you, they won’t wait until you can regain your composure. And if you do what you did last night, there goes your entire Hunt. You were irresponsible last night and have shown you are unfit to be a Hunter. You can prove yourself in the next couple months that you’re not stupid enough to almost kill yourself for _fun_.” Dave opens his mouth and then closes it. His hand aches for his sword.  
“He’s just a boy! You did reckless things when you were his age, Lieutenant. Believe me, I remember.” Dave looks to Mr. Egbert, his lips tipping up. He’s looking back with the same expression. “We agreed we would see how he’s doing and then decide if he’s that determined to go.” Mr. Egbert touches Snowman’s shoulder and she recoils.  
“I am. I really want to go.” He looks between them again and adds “Sir,” to Mr. Egbert.

 

Training is over when the sun makes it’s way so it’s right over their heads. Dave is gulping ice water like his life depends on it when he hears a voice over his shoulder.  
“Did Dad have anything important to say?” Dave almost chokes and whips around to a rosy-cheeked and sweaty John Egbert behind him. A little bit of water dribbles down his chin. He hasn’t actually talked to John in what feels like years, but really they had practiced shooting together only yesterday. Dave is so thankful for his shades so John can’t see his eyes flicker from John’s mouth trying to regain his breath to the ground next to him. He leans back against the fence.  
“Yeah. Cigarette Lady was saying shit like ‘I don’t think you’re fit for the job Strider, maybe you better sit this puppy out’ and I was like hell no, I’m not letting my best friend stumble through the woods for eight days without me.” It comes out a little choppy but it’s the only thing he’s said that has sounded sort of like himself since he woke up. Instead of breaking into a too-big-for-his-face toothy grin, John’s eyes widen with what looks a little like fear.  
“You’re still going?” John asks, and Dave goes back to the ice water.  
“Yeah. Nothing can knock me down, Colonel. Nothing.” This one’s even more unsteady. Jesus, Dave, get yourself together.  
John says nothing and reaches for his black police jacket that he had hung on the fence. The little golden badge that glints in the morning sunlight used to be John’s pride and joy, back when they were twelve. John used to point his fingers into a gun shape and Dave would dodge and duck his moving fingers on the other end of the yard, until they would argue whether John had actually hit him or not. If he had, Dave would spin twice and fall to the ground and reach out his hand for John to take, telling him his last words. They were usually something like “lay off the sweets, Egderp” or he would just start rapping softer and softer until his final word was lost in the wind and John was giggling uncontrollably. John would then lift his fists in the air and cry out “WHY” until they would both double over or get shouted at by the neighbors.

Dave passes John his water after hearing how heavy he’s breathing, hands on his hips, heaving. John takes it and takes one single gulp. “I think they have soup for sale today, wanna try it out?” John asks, his smile starting to come out behind his swigs of water. Dave lifts his eyebrows.  
“No important police work that has to get done? No top secret cures being developed? Am I honestly Colonel Egbert’s number one priority? This truly is a blessed day.” _Keep your mood up, Strider,_ he reminds himself again. John laughs a little, but it sounds a little troubled. Maybe he’s just trying to dance around Dave’s feelings like Jade was.  
John bumps his shoulder. “Shut up. You wanna get Jade?”  
“Just call me and I’m there,” Jade says, and Dave turns to see Jade walking up with Rose Lalonde on her arm. Rose is wrapped with a purple scarf and her hair looks almost white in the sun.  
“Hey, Rose. Nice knives,” John says, pausing to take another gulp of water. Dave eyes the curved blades in Rose’s hand that she sheaths into one of the holsters on her hips. Rose has always been good with throwing knives, but Dave’s never seen the effectiveness of using them. And just imagine having to tear them out of a skull. Sick.  
From the way her black lips twitch up it’s like she hears Dave’s thoughts.  
“Thank you, Colonel.” Rose says, going to eye John again. Dave feels a little pang. _That’s my bit._ “They let me bring my own,” Rose says, putting mittens on her hands.  
“They never let me bring my sword.”  
“That’s because your sword is a piece of shit,” John announces, and Dave grabs him in a headlock, his black hair brushing Dave’s nose.  
“My sword is the coolest sword ever to touch down on this planet,” and when John squeaks out “Hell no,” Jade and Rose laugh, their blush-tipped noses crinkling, before starting to walk in front of them.  
“We’re going to get soup,” Jade shouts, raising her hand in a wave, and John and Dave stop their wrestling to hurry after them. John seems more withdrawn than usual on the walk, his overgrown black locks still stuck to his face with sweat, but Dave doesn’t really mind. It gives him more time to try not to think.  
Dave goes the entire lunch without picturing green eyes. He laughs with his friends over boiling bowls of soup in the worn down restaurant that is always busy during this time. It’s not the best batch Dave’s had, but it’s the first in a while. It warms him all the way to his fingertips, along with the fact that he has these four people to share his soup with. It’s almost like for an hour, he was in that world he thought of at Jade’s.  
Just as John and Dave are finishing lunch, the announcement begins. It starts with thirty seconds of the National Anthem played through rusted speakers that were a gift from the government years ago. They put those corroded things everywhere, so that whether you stood outside or inside you could always at least faintly hear the daily announcements. If you were over by Rust Bridge it was like a whisper in the distance, eerily familiar through the trees. If you were in the suburbs you could hear it bouncing on the side of houses until it’s an entire chorus of echoing notes. Dave hums along to the anthem nervously as he knows what’s coming next. John gives him a nervous half smile, knowing too. It’s not exactly the little secret that you’re proud of knowing.  
Dave’s glad the girls left a little bit ago to go talk with some other girls, because he doesn’t want to imagine Rose’s face when they say it. She knew all about their little games of Rooster, even played a few herself back when it was warm. Dave shudders. The anthem ends and a wave of static rolls over through the speakers. Dave closes his eyes behind his shades.  
"This is the daily public announcement. We have grave news to tell today. As some of you may have heard, Gamzee Makara and Terezi Pyrope were killed by a pack of five Bodies in the forests of an unpatrolled area. We have sent officers to this new area and have it secured. Please rest assured that we have the issue covered, and please, a moment of silence for these children." A few more seconds of static. Then the familiar voice starts to talk about upcoming farmer’s market sales and that’s it. It’s over. The whole Settlement knows what happened. That was their final sendoff— the idea of a funeral or an actual mourning out of the question. John and Dave look around both of them, and outside some women over by an outdoor clothes shop have their mouths covered in shock. Some have just started on their daily routine again, half-listening to the continuing droll of announcements. A couple kids from training look at Dave behind their jackets from a couple tables over with disdain, probably because they know about the game of Rooster that no one showed up to and that their hiding place is gone. John says something, and through it all Dave has to ask him to repeat it.  
“You okay?” he asks again.  
Dave clutches his container of leftover soup and nods. “Yeah, I’m great.” his voice cracks and he almost screams. 

Dave brushes his teeth late that night, all the while playing with his new phone. It’s an old one of Jade’s, who get’s new technology every year for every holiday. It’s the only thing her Grandpa knows she loves, so when the government manages to send over train cars full of computers and phones and things that attempt to keep us connected to other Settlements, Grandpa Harley always gets first pick. This one isn’t as great as Dave’s old one, but it works. He’s re-entered numbers and he’s about to spit his toothpaste and head back to his room when he hears it.  
“—how he was with Bro. Imagine if something happens to him out there,”  
“It’s up to him, John. I think he needs to do this for himself.”  
They’re talking about him. They’re talking about Bro. Dave stands still, his mind starting to think of the different ways they could be standing, if the soft determination in John is coming from him leaning over the counter, pointing at his Dad.  
“You were supposed to take him out of the Hunt. I saw him last night, I heard him today, he’s not okay.” They get quieter, harsh whispers exchanged down the stairs, and Dave strains to hear through his racing thoughts and burning cheeks.  
“Listen, son. Dave’s a strong kid, just like you. He’s your best friend. You’ll make a good team.” They get too quiet. Dave stares at himself in the mirror, spits and books it to his room.  
 _John told his Dad to stop him._ His best friend. The person who had encouraged him all these years to train harder, to work closer to being a Hunter, almost ruined his chances of ever becoming one.  
Dave stands in his room and puffs breaths through his lungs.  
John thinks he’s weak. He thinks if something goes wrong Dave will freeze like he did on the bridge. Dave takes off his shades and stares at his fuming face in his mirror. His blonde hair has fallen into his eyes and he stares, stares at his stupid skinny arms and scars from sparring with Bro on his collarbone. His red eyes refuse to look into their own refection. Dave hates his eyes more than anyone could know. A birth defect, a pair of messed up eyes for a messed up kid.  
But he’s strong. He’s been taught to be fine with the news of death, because he’s been taught that’s his life. Even when it came to Bro, he was okay. Because that’s what he’d known. That people will die, that people will go missing, and people will turn into Bodies, and that there’s nothing you can do about it.  
And once Dave shows the tiniest sign of being a person to someone, who feels something when these things happen, everyone assumes he’s gone off the deep end. It makes Dave sick that John could even think that about him. John was always more sensitive about things. Yet he still has the nerve to call Dave out on his one time of weakness.  
There’s a couple knocks on his door minutes later as Dave is still seething. John’s airy voice is muffled a little by the door and Dave stares at the knob, burning.  
“Dave? You in there?” Dave cannot collect himself. He’s red faced and he cannot pull on a gentle smile for John. That lying, sneaking douche bag who tells his father to use his power to make his friend sit out on the only thing he’s ever wanted.  
“Sleeping,” Dave utters, still staring at the door. He’s supposed to last eight days with John. Eight days with a sword in his hand and John standing _right there._  
“You’re not sleeping. How would you be able to sleep right now?”  
“Like this.” Dave snaps. Things fall quiet.  
“Oh.” He can hear the creaking of the floorboards as John shifts his weight. “Then goodnight, Dave.” He has that stupid troubled tone to his voice again, and it’s so stupid because Dave knows now that John’s been sneaking around with his Dad for the past day, convincing him before training that he was a nervous wreck. Dave’s been training for his first Hunt since he was a toddler. He’s going to be the best Hunter even if he has a few things to tear him down. And he’ll give John Egbert hell if he thinks that he can leave him behind.

Dave packs his bag at eight the next morning, fills it with rolled up shirts and pants and everything that he’s been taught about over the past three years of his life. He packs without thought—the checklist he’s organized in his head moving his half-asleep body until his bag is almost filled. He’s ready, he realizes with a bitter taste in his mouth. He’s ready to go on his first Hunt.  
In the Settlement, school was what Bro used to describe as “half-assed”. There were no true teachers up until grade five, when they’re all old enough to roughly understand just what kind of hell they live in. So up until Dave reached fifth grade it was mostly just play time for the kids, basic math and learning to read. Then when Dave was given the talk, the talk about who they are and what they mean, Dave knew that the things Bro was doing then was what he wanted to do when he was old enough. He wanted to kill the creatures that had wiped out half of his world’s population. That scattered people into sections, only able to reach some others, unable to know who or what lies beyond.  
Dave trained with Bro hard after that, training with John when Bro was gone on Hunts. When Bro would come back, sometimes a little scratched up with dirt on his boots and blood on his neck, Dave was reassured he knew who he wanted to be.  
So then when he turned sixteen, Dave proved to a panel of officers that he took both his schooling and training seriously. He got put on a waiting list and assigned a Hunt and then Bro went missing.  
He had then decided that his first Hunt would also be the perfect time to leave and find his brother.  
Dave wipes his hands over his face. When he had promised himself this it was only minutes after he found out about Bro’s disappearance, and he had never questioned it since. But now. How was he going to even attempt to find him? He can’t imagine leaving his group, like Bro apparently did. Which way would he go? Just hope that he stumbles into him?  
What if he doesn’t want to be found?  
Dave clenches his teeth. He’ll think about it later. For now, he’s ready to face John. He puts on his shades and looks at himself, somehow satisfied. Hair combed, thin frame covered in his favorite long sleeved flannel. On his shoulder, he has his black backpack that despite being heavy as hell will need to be that way if he wants all of his things to fit. He has his iPod in the back pocket, a thin sleeping bag from Jade that could be used in the middle of the Russian winter, and other items that he’s carefully rolled into order at the bottom. All he needs is his coat, which is downstairs. With John.  
He saunters downstairs, trying to look interested in the paint on the walls, keeping his eyes from the person he doesn’t want to see. Walking down the last few steps, Dave sneaks one glance. John is facing away from him, putting some canned food into his pack. Dave silently swears for forgetting something as simple as that.  
John turns around and smiles. Dave only watches out of the corner of his eye, going to the fridge. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.” John points to a cardboard box on the counter filled with canned foods, and more importantly, a can opener. At the bottom is packages of bullets and a jug of water, which Dave already has enough of. He lets himself feel smug about that, leaving it at the bottom.  
“Today’s the day,” John says, a little breathless, like he’s just let out a bewildered laugh.  
“Yeah,” Dave lets out, monotone and steady. He looks to the closet for a pair of gloves like Bro’s, black and fingerless with grips on them. He never used to like how hot they make his hands, but he puts them on now, liking the warmth and familiar roughness. It feels a little bit like home.

Mr. Egbert says there aren’t enough ingredients for him to make a cake—which is usually his way to celebrate any occasion. Seriously, if the man didn’t live in a place like the Settlement be could probably open up a bakery of his own. But he does live in the Settlement, so he bakes a pumpkin pudding for breakfast that they eat in silence.  
As the sun hits Dave’s skin through the window, Mr. Egbert hugs John for a log time, saying things softly into his hair. Dave continues to pack a few extra things; a small blade that he tucks in his boot, one last can of food. Mr. Egbert walks across the room to him and pulls Dave in for a hug, too. Dave’s rigid at first, but he hugs back eventually. He’s not mad at Mr. Egbert, after all. He was on Dave’s side during this whole mess. “I know you can do this,” he says, blue eyes like Johns but lined with crows feet, closer to Dave than he’s ever been. Dave nods, trying to look away. He grabs his grey jacket and pulls it loosely around his shoulders, before john comes over by him in the doorway, backpack exceeding human limits.  
“Smile, boys.” John groans when his father lifts up a Polaroid camera. His Dad looks up over the brim of his hat and raises an eyebrow, and the groaning ends abruptly. John hooks an arm around Dave and squints into a smile, and Dave accidently lets his heart pick up the pace as he stares his default expression back into the camera.  
“Oh come on Dave, say ‘zombie apocalypse!’”  
John guffaws through the next picture, and Dave says it with a growl in his throat and a fake grin as Mr. Egbert snaps the picture.

Only halfway through their walk to the Wall Dave knows that he cannot stroll and listen to John talk about simple nothings because it is _killing him_. So he stops walking, getting so fucking angry while John talks about pumpkin pudding.  
“What’s wrong,” John rushes over to him when he sees Dave gone from his side, his glasses falling to the tip of his nose. Dave glares down at him through his shades, hating how big his police jacket is on him, how the cold has already turned his nose pink and how he’s looking at Dave like he might break.  
“You tried to stop me from going.” Dave says quietly. John pulls a scrunched face after a second of pure terror flashes across his face.  
“What? No I didn’t.”  
“I heard you talking to your dad, John. That I’m too weak and fragile. That I’ll just slow down big bad Egbert if I drag my wailing body out there.” Dave starts walking again, hating how the cold rushes down his throat and chokes him.  
“Well you should have seen yourself on the night you came back.” So there it is— his grand confession.  
“Yeah, I know, I looked terrible. But what would you have done, Egbert? After jumping off a fucking bridge? Gotten up and brushed off your shoulders?”  
“I wouldn’t have gone out on that bridge.” John says, angrier than Dave’s ever seen him. And it just fuels Dave on.  
“And so now I’m not allowed to try to even get a tiny bit of excitement?”  
“You left the Settlement and people died because of it. You could have helped them. But instead you were drunk and they died.” John looks like he’s close to tears through his glare. Dave bites the tip of his own tongue before saying it anyway.  
“And maybe we’ll get lucky and I’ll die out there too.” Dave is breathing heavy, his cheeks burning. He turns away, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. He balls his fists and hopes that he doesn’t lose it.  
“I just didn’t want you to get hurt.” Comes a tiny voice behind him.  
“Oh, shut the hell up, John. I used to swordfight my brother. That should say enough.” He laughs, crazily, exasperated. “I’ve trained my entire life. I’ve studied, and I’ve qualified for this. Having one stupid thing happen to me is not going to change the fact that I could kill you before you’re next breath.” But Dave knows he can’t. He couldn’t. All he can do is stand there as the still air echoes Dave’s last word around them.  
“I’m still going to obey your orders, Colonel,” Dave bites off. “But I am not going to be your friend.”  
“Don’t you think you’re being overdramatic? I was trying to save you. If you die out there it’s my fault, I—“  
John stops walking again. Having told John off makes Dave feel stone cold. He keeps walking, leaving John behind. He reaches the training center, picks out knives and a pistol, as a light rain starts to drip down from the clouds. He lightly touches the row of swords, his hands looking like his bother’s in their black gloves. He picks the one he used yesterday in training, puts it in a holster, and walks to the Wall. He stands next to Jade, who squeezes his hand in a silent greeting. Eridan Ampora, a tall, lanky douchebag who thinks he can shoot better than anyone, stands and cracks his neck from side to side. Tavros Nitram stands next to him, staring at the ground as they’re briefed for their mission. These jokes are going to be his company for the next week.  
Rose is here, and she whispers to Jade that she smuggled some booze for the long nights, then tells Jade to pass it on to Dave. He gives Rose a small eyebrow raise even though he didn’t expect anything else, and she shrugs.  
And then on the end with Rose is John, staring straight, a soldier’s jaw keeping his head straight. Dave hates him. He hates the light catching on the bridge of his nose and the nervous swallow he gives when their briefing is over and they’re permitted through the Wall. Feeling the sharp rush of something like fear, Dave turns, starts to walk forward toward the trees and draws his sword.

A first Hunt is a tradition, though necessary. Members of the Hunt must be trained in the art of survival, combat, and be ready to face the elements and outside sources of trouble, including infected Bodies. A seven to eight day trip must be taken through unprotected land at different intervals of time to reach the southern train station. Though guided by notes of previous Hunters, it is a right of passage into adulthood that a group of sixteen year olds take their first Hunt together, unguided by adults. After the first four days, the Hunters should reach the Station, hidden so that only Hunters should be able to find it. There, as set up since the beginning of the Body infection, is a radio messaging system that reports to a eastern Settlement. Here at the Station is where the leader of the Hunt reports to this Settlement what their next shipment should be, via radio. If all is timed out correctly from the previous Hunt, the train arriving from the last contacted Settlement should pull in around the time of the Hunter’s arrival. It is then the Hunter’s job to transport the delivered packages back to the Settlement at any cost, all while eliminating any Bodies to come in the way. A member of the Hunt should keep and record any Body attacks, and if at all possible track the movement of Bodies in the area. Every Hunt is important to the growth and safety of a Settlement, but a first Hunt is the time for a child to become a helpful and significant part of the wellbeing of others.

They’re quiet for a whopping fifteen minutes before Eridan breaks the silence. He talks like he has better places to be, fingers running through his black hair slicked back like a greaser.  
“Does anyone even have the compass?” he asks. Of course the rest of them all have a compass. One of the first lessons taught to them in school is that if you’re ever to pursue a career as a Hunter, you need just enough supplies to support yourself, compass included. If you’re separated, you don’t want to open your pack to see all of your team members’ clothes and then remember that a dead Hunter holds all your food and matches. That and to aim for vital points; those were the two most important rules.  
He feels himself tip back into flashbacks of himself sitting in class as just a high voiced blonde mop, learning about human anatomy and then the proper way to face bodies in hand to hand combat. There obviously weren’t that many ways to face something like a full grown Body without a weapon, and a kid that small was almost guaranteed to be bitten. But they taught it anyway; an easy way to pick off who couldn’t handle it.  
Rose answers Eridan with forced politeness.  
“Yes, Eridan. I’ve got my compass. We’re heading east right now. We should hit the first checkpoint by nightfall.” Rose, being herself, obviously memorized the notes they were given on where they were headed. Dave has them written in a small notepad in his pocket, and he knows that John probably has them printed in a book he’ll pull out later.  
After a couple hours, Dave is wondering what makes this trip so difficult; they’re route has practically been mapped out for them. From the notes they have to the obvious change in grass height, they’re lead through the bare forest and rotting leaves. Dave’s hand is starting to cramp from gripping his sword, and he loosens it a little, swinging it back and forth. Jade comes up by Dave and bumps him lightly with her arm.  
“Well look at us, we’re practically pros by now. The best Hunters that ever lived.”  
Jade looks so young next to her rifle, grinning behind her glasses. Dave almost feels sad for a second, and then reminds himself he’s not going to feel anything for a while. Dave elbows her back but doesn’t say anything, and he wishes he didn’t stay to see how her expression changes.  
They walk for what feels like forever, a small line of bundled teenagers underneath the midmorning sun. Tavros trips over a branch and they all flinch; John even raises his gun, ready to cock it, and Dave hates him. Tavros stumbles through an apology, and Jade asks him if he’s all right. They start walking again. The trees all stay the same, tall and looming, holding shelter to creatures that click and chatter in their bare branches. 

They reach the checkpoint on their first night. They build a large fire, knowing that they’re close enough to the Settlement that the Bodies in this area have mostly been killed off. Dave silently thanks the people ten years ago on this trail that body-proofed it for them. They must have had it much worse than them, wandering blindly through the woods. But now the forest is so bare that the Bodies at Rust Bridge must have been traveling toward the Settlement for a long time to get where they were.  
Dave bites down hard on his spoon, the lukewarm beans he’s eating sticking to his throat, trying to avoid the thought. Across from him, Tavros builds himself a little nest out of his sleeping bag right near the fire, and then puts it over his head so that they can only see his face and the little of his deflated Mohawk peeking out. He puts his crossbow next to him, loaded, and keeps his eyes locked on the fire. He’s got the first day jitters; Dave can tell.  
Across the fire, John is helping Jade and Rose set up a tent. Dave doesn’t need one tonight; he won’t need one until he wakes up with a blue nose. But Dave can’t stand the sight of John bent over and working, so he stands, placing his sword on the ground.  
Dave starts talking to Eridan a little later as they both wander a little into the forest to take a piss, and the guy is just as horrible as he remembered from training. He looks at Dave’s gloves and lifts an eyebrow. “Perfect for winter” he says, and Dave wants to insult his scarf so badly. Who even wears a scarf that way and does it unironicaly? The next morning, Dave whispers to Jade to borrow her scarf and puts the thing around his neck just like Eridan, pursing his lips and strutting with his sword just behind him until Rose snorts and Dave has to pretend like nothing’s happening. John looks behind him when he hears Rose, his steps slowing a little, and Dave pretends he’s interested in some plants that are growing on the side of the path.  
They eat breakfast while they walk, a gourmet meal of canned fruits in syrup that taste too summery for the wintery winds blowing around them. Dave is sick of carrying his sword drawn, and he slips it back into its casing. Just as he does, John turns back towards them. The Colonel looks at each of them but Dave. He’s glad. “It says in the notes there’s a stream coming up. Anyone for a bath?” and Tavros is the only one who actually laughs. Rose and Jade walk up by John; talking about school memories and training drills and other nothings, bounce in their step as their boots jump over stray rocks and roots. Dave blocks out them once John starts talking.  
The creek isn’t yet frozen and it only rises to their shins, but John takes twenty minutes testing the temperature to make sure it’s safe before they cross. Once Dave wades in he decides that it’s not even that bad, once he’s used to it. It’s warmer than the river, at least. Eridan crosses and stands at the edge, waiting, flipping his pocketknife open and closed. The rest of them are splashing a little, gentle kicks toward each other and talking, cleaning off their already clean weapons. Jade is in a conversation with John, and Dave turns his back and starts to talk to Tavros, who rarely looks up from the water flowing under them. Later, Rose is spitting out a sentence about her under the table business before turning abruptly and throwing her knife without a thought, spearing a fish that had been swimming past. Even Eridan looks impressed, and John suggests they cook it up for lunch. As Jade and John build a fire, Eridan and Tavros opening cans next to them, Rose tips her head to beckon Dave and pulls him aside.  
“Am I allowed to inquire what happened between you and John?” she questions, a barely audible whisper.  
“He’s a dick, that’s what happened.”  
“Did he try to get his father to stop you from coming?” Dave looks at her, bewildered. “He told me,” she says, picking dirt out from under her nails. Dave stares at her.  
“Well, I don’t want this to go so far as to prevent you two from working together.” she says. Dave risks a glance at John from here, bent over the fire and smiling with Jade. Rose’s black lips purse and she narrows her eyes at Dave when he quickly turns back. “And don’t tell me that you don’t care about him. Because you do.”  
“If I knew you were going to talk to me about the Colonel and my feelings, I would have never come over.” Dave turns away from her and looks up to see a set of green eyes staring from the other side of the creek though the trees.  
His entire body goes cold.

“Jade,” Dave says loudly, just as the growling comes. The creatures are rushing toward them, hunched over and deep, guttural moaning coming from their decaying throats.  
The first shot comes from Jade’s gun and the first one falls, but there are at least six more of them coming now. Dave pulls out his pistol and shoots the first pair of eyes he sees, ignoring their stretched mouths and curved claws outstretched toward him. There’s the sound of guns all around him and two more fall, and four of them cross the creek, their feet sloshing the still water and slowing them only for seconds. Dave reaches for his sword, and leaves Rose to her knives. He sprints to a body as soon as there’s a scream, and he can’t look toward where it came from. He jumps and readies himself, the moldering head of the Body only a breathe away. The body turns and screeches as Dave’s sword slices almost all the way through the neck. It sticks, wedged in the muscle, and Dave has to pull out and hack it one more time. The blood splatters onto his face, but the body lies on the ground in two parts, and he turns around to Tavros on the ground split in half as well.  
Jade seems to have just shot his attacker, because her gun is still aimed at the air above a fallen Body, ready to fire. Dave watches her breathe a couple times, eyes unfocused. Dave walks to her and the figure next to her. There lies Tavros, his legs a full foot away from where they should be on his body, his eyes locked open as he struggles to breathe. There’s a grunt behind Dave and he spins around, ready, but Rose has just dug her knife in the final Body’s chest. Her hair is half crimson and sticking to her face, and when she sees the rest of them she rushes over, tripping over her own feet. They’re surrounded by the stench of blood and decay, and John kneels down on the other side of Tavros. Eridan just stands above him, his eyes glazed over. Tavros heaves in a couple puffs of air, nothing but his chest moving, before he stops altogether. They all just watch him, his blood seeping into the ground all around them, as the life leaves his eyes. 

They get up and leave. Bodies might smell the blood. They spend five minutes in the creek, only smearing the red on their faces trying to rub it off, before starting back along the path. Dave looks at Tavros’ body as Eridan looms over it, as he has been. Dave doesn’t want to think _he shouldn’t have come if he was afraid of this happening._ But he does. He ignores his own feelings, ignores every impulse in him to look down at the corpse, as he patiently waits for them to leave. They take Tavros’ supplies, distributing it to each of them. Dave gets Tavros’ radio, fully-charged and unused. He puts it in the bottom of his backpack, a memory of Tavros to carry around with him for a little while.

The second night Dave stays up with Rose until three in the morning to keep watch. He hopes to everything holy that she doesn’t try to bring up anything that has to do with John, because he’s already so tired and if she bring it up he’ll probably start screaming with the idea that he’ll have to think. The other Hunters sleep ten feet away from where he’s sitting against a tree, using one of his knives to saw slowly through thick twigs to keep his mind awake. Rose is five feet to his left against another tree, facing the opposite direction. She twirls a knife in her hand, distracting Dave with the reflections that bounce off his glasses. He thinks about Tavros a lot of the time; about the blood and the intestines spilling out of his abdomen as he still clung to life by a single thread. He thinks about Terezi’s laugh turning into a scream and seeing a claw dig into her chest. He thinks about Gamzee’s head, eyes permanently open. But he mostly thinks about the things that did it to them, and how he killed one of them today.  
He thinks that he should be proud—Bro said he was proud on his first Hunt when he finally got to spear those bastards. But Dave just feels numb. Maybe the satisfaction will hit him tomorrow.  
“Dave, I’m going to change. Look and I’ll kill you,” Rose whispers, and Dave knows that she probably isn’t kidding. Her short hair is still flecked with dried blood, a little bit smeared on her cheek too. Dave tips his head against the tree.  
“Yeah,” he says. She goes to stand up, and Dave turns away from her and looks over to the fire. Jade is in the tent tonight, not having to stay up on watch at all today. Eridan is so close to the fire Dave worries that his hair grease may be flammable. And then in a sprawled out pile of a sleeping bag and coat is a lightly snoring John Egbert. He sees the bag shift and John turns over so his face catches the light of the fire. Dave watches, clenching his jaw, wanting to hate him. His mouth is open just the tiniest bit, his chest rising and falling, his glasses sitting in the dirt next to him. Dave has his sword next to him. He thinks back to two days ago in the Settlement, in the middle of their fight. He could kill him before he takes his next breath. But instead he just leans his head back again on the tree and watches.

When the infestation started, Dave was three years old. He doesn’t remember anything from his life before Bodies, but Bro told him that they lived in a tall building and that Dave would cry like no fucking tomorrow. They moved into the nearest Settlement as soon as it was organized, and Bro became a sort of idol around town, at least with the kids. They all admired his sunglasses, which he told them he had invented himself as a weapon, the triangular corners once used to slice a Body’s head clean off. Dave never knew if that story was true.  
Mr. Egbert trained Bro himself, both of them finding their place among the law in the Settlement, and the two of them became almost as close as their sons. John was a total dork for anything having to do with Bodies—from listening to radio reports to going back and watching movies from Bro’s days about zombies. Even though he always watched them too, Dave hated the fake look of those; the bad stage makeup and the obviously human features. _Bodies are nothing like that,_ Dave would think. The infestation didn’t just make three fourths of the population brain-dead. It made them unrecognizably animalistic.  
He doesn’t even know how long the process took either, but within months of his third birthday the virus had spread and people bitten by the Bodies were transforming within minutes. Bro was smart enough to get them into a Settlement before things got too bad, and soon the virus was all but gone, or at least contained. The Settlements still lived on their own, only using regular trade by train to get supplies, and the Hunts of course, but the Bodies were slowly dying out. As humans became trained to kill them, Bodies were unable to eat and spread the disease. They were slowly overcoming what tore them apart. So then there’s Dave. A single person forced to live through this mess. A single being in a forest miles from his home.  
And he’s looking at John.

“What would you like to talk about, Dave?” Rose asks, and Dave realizes that she’s sitting again, clad in short-sleeves. It’s cold, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She puts her arms around her legs, pulling them close, and places her head on her knee. “You want to talk about your feelings yet?” Dave scoots a little closer to her after realizing that if he doesn’t at least try to start thinking he’ll fall asleep on his watch.  
“You said that John told you,” whispers Dave. “About telling his Dad to stop me.” He hopes the crackle of the fire blocks his words from John’s ears.  
“Ah, yes. While you were getting soup,” Rose combs a hand through her hair, laughing a little.  
“What’d he say?”  
“Surely he tried to explain, didn’t he?”  
“I don’t really remember. I was pretty fucking pissed.”  
“I don’t think you should hear it from me,” Rose says, their voices getting louder with each word. Dave lowers his again.  
“I’m not talking to him again.” Dave pushes his shades back up his nose.  
“You’re best friends,” she says, an obvious frustration in her voice. It makes Dave fume.  
“Not anymore.”  
“You can’t be serious. You’re making him look like he did something wrong.”  
“What? So now I’m a bad person because I fucking wanted to do this? That I didn’t graciously let him have the Hunt all to himself?”  
“He wasn’t trying to steal the spotlight, Dave.”  
“Oh, he just thinks I need to be put away in a mental hospital because I witnessed death in a place where that’s just _oh so uncommon._ ”  
“Dave. He saw the opportunity to keep you safe, and he took it.”  
Dave closes his mouth when he goes to retort. Rose draws back from where they’ve been leaning in. Dave lets out a huge breath through his nose and goes back to his tree, picking up his sword again. He glances at his watch on his arm over his black glove. Dried blood from a Body cakes the surface, and Dave scrubs it a little.  
“It’s after three.” Dave and Rose start to stand. He can feel exhaustion tickling the corners of his eyes, and they wearily flick to a sleeping John again.  
“Can you please wake him up?” Rose nods noiselessly, fixing her jacket around herself again and putting her knives back in her pocket. Dave shakes Eridan with his gloved hand and his eyes shoot open, thick eyebrows knitting together when he sees who’s woken him up.  
“Good morning, Prince Eridan,” Dave murmurs, and Eridan groans in response, reaching for his gun and shuffling out of his sleeping bag. Dave pats him twice on the shoulder, wishing he could just tell him how dumb his hair looks right now. He stumbles over to his pack next to the tent, reaching for the sleeping bag on top. He sets it down next to the fire, hungry for at least some relief from the cold. While he takes off his boots he watches out of the corner of his eye as for John.  
 _He saw the opportunity and took it._ The opportunity for what? He thinks Rose meant to keep him safe. Safe, huh. He almost snorts. Dave doesn’t need to be taken care of. He wanted this Hunt and John knows that. So why the hell did he think he needed to be kept safe from it?  
He’s so tired. He lays on his stomach and grips his sword and watches the fire until he feels his grip loosen. When he’s sure this eyes are about to close, he takes a chance and glances up. There against his tree, John finishes wiping clean his glasses, places them on his face, ruffles his black hair, and then looks back at Dave, the surprise moving right to his eyes.

The next two days are a long time of being awake and walking. Dave gets so exhausted the third day that he drops his sword and almost scares the shit out of everyone. By sundown on the fourth day Dave is feeling so tired and hungry that he asks if he can break out the food before sundown.  
“We’re almost there,” John tells him. Dave feels the wave roll through him. John spoke to him. Dave stares at John’s stiff back and knows that he’s just realized it too. Eridan starts to talk from directly in front of Dave seconds later.  
“Did you really jump off a bridge, Dave?” he asks. Dave feels his face start to burn. Embarrassment makes it’s way to his palms and he wipes them on his pants as he talks.  
“Yeah, I sure did.”  
“What was it like?” Eridan asks. Dave’s never heard his voice so light. He’s almost sure he’s setting himself up to be mocked, but he answers.  
“Scary. But whatever, I’d do it again if I had to.” And he would.  
Would he? The message from John was what made him jump. And now, boots crunching dead leaves beneath his feet, the boy who saved his life hates him. If there was another time when he was stuck between Bodies and a train, he guesses he would choose the latter. There wouldn’t be anyone to stop him, after all.

The trees break open to a field, which leaves the setting sun to fry into their freezing faces. John points to a building in the distance, a mere dot on the edge of a forest, but Dave let’s out a mesmerized “woah” because it’s the first building he’s seen in days.  
“We’re here!” Jade shouts. Running in front of them, she lifts her gun over her head and sprints far in front of John.  
“Jade! Slow down,” John calls, but he’s starting to laugh with her. Rose grabs Dave’s arm and pulls him into a run, all of them letting out relieved pants as they sprint. The world shakes with every forced breathe and Dave feels so free, freer than he had at Rust Bridge when the alcohol was making him feel it. The field is brown with dead grass and the leaves are all but dropped but Dave is running. The sky is blue and he is running and he feels alive.

John, as leader of the Hunt, radios the other Settlement and alerts them that they made it, giving them the list of codes for items that they’ll need in two months on the next Hunt. Dave lies down in the grass while he does, embracing the cold as the sun sets over the line of trees. Another Hunt in two months. He doesn’t know why, but the thought is exciting. He feels better out here than he ever did in the Settlement, and the thought makes him feel like a sick bastard.  
He eats a bag of nuts while he lies there, the girls in the woods for the bathroom and Eridan collecting wood for a fire. Dave is looking forward to camping here. He can’t wait to look up at the stars at last instead of a mess of branches blocking his view. His bedroom with Bro used to have the window right next to his bed, so that he could watch the stars move across the sky on the nights he couldn’t sleep. Somehow, his thoughts wander until they settle on his bedroom at home right now, in the spare room of John’s house. He thinks back to what Rose had told him about John. During the long walks Dave had been playing the past week over and over in his mind. John’s eyes, nervous whenever Dave talked about the Hunt, his hands when he told the story of the bridge, still in shock. Dave thinks about the half-glance that John gave him as Tavros died that Dave had pushed out of his mind until now. He almost laughs to himself. He can’t hate John. John was trying to save him, however insane that might be.  
Dave sits up and watches the wooden station, looking for John inside. He paces back and forth, the radio receiver in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other, speaking into the radio. He thinks he sees John glance over, and Dave tries to look preoccupied. It’s getting dark quick. Hopefully Eridan will be back before he staggers back to them half-terrified and dropping the wood with each step. 

He can’t just stand here forever. Dave tells his pride to suck it and turns and walks up the steps to the station, an apology already forming itself behind his lips. He reaches the top and stands with both hands on a rail, looking out over the empty train tracks. He doesn’t let himself feel anything when he imagines himself skipping from rail tie to tie.  
John continues naming off codes on the list, meaningless letters and numbers that they’re not allowed to know to assure safety of the Settlements. Dave’s never understood that part of the Hunt. John breathes out and says into the radio “over”. Dave is nervous and he doesn’t want to do this suddenly. He lets go of the rail and turns to leave.  
“Dave?” John asks, warily. Dave stops, pretending like he was just trying to get a better view of the tracks. He’s facing the opposite way of John, so he lets himself grimace before he makes an ass of himself.  
“I’m sorry I yelled at you.” Dave says in a rush, more of a mumble than an actual apology. He sees two hands grip the rail next to him.  
“Thank you for that genuine apology, Mr. Strider.” He knows John is smiling behind his words, and Dave glances at him.  
“And since we’re making formal apologies, I’m sorry I almost got you kicked off the Hunt.” Dave looks down at him, his puff of black hair, his jacket too big on him, his shirt collar sticky with blood.  
“Yeah, let’s be glad you’re Dad is way cooler than you and he saw that all this rocking power cannot be held within walls,” John genuinely laughs.  
“And you’re back.” Dave smirks and thinks about saying something snarky again, but he smirks down at John instead.  
“All right, bring it in.” John laughs, hugging Dave around his shoulders. He’s shorter than Dave by half a head, his nose shoving against Dave’s collar. Dave enjoys it, feeling his anger all but evaporate in that moment. Then he remembers.  
“Rose told me you did it because—“  
John sucks in a breath, letting go of Dave and looking at him, horrified. “She told you?” He exclaims. Dave cocks an eyebrow.  
“Uh, yeah.” John turns and looks where Rose is returning with Jade from the edge of the woods.  
“She told you…oh my god, I’m going to kill her.” John rubs his bare hands over his face and turns back to Dave, his blue eyes wide.  
“What? What’s the matter?” John looks at Dave with something he can’t describe, John somehow getting closer, and then John’s eyes suddenly flick multiple times over Dave’s shoulder. Dave hears it too. The steady rumble of a train coming down the tracks; the train that they’ve been waiting for. John seems to realize it the same time Dave does. They’re halfway to a successful Hunt.  
But the noise brings Dave back to the bridge, and back to the glowing eyes. He looks at John, paralyzed, not even able to react when John says something over the roar and clicking coming down the tracks. John backs away from him, and Dave doesn’t even realize that they were standing so close. Dave can’t move, not even after John leaves him to go meet the train. Slowing, Dave listens as it breaths out a long hiss and comes to a stop.

Running over to the train, they all wave a wild hello to the conductor. His untrimmed goatee and dirty teeth wave back, and he hops out to open their designated train car. He doesn’t say anything about the boxes that he unloads, and Dave finds himself becoming confused by the boxes marked only by a series of numbers. It’s not even much supply, and it comes only with a cart to wheel it back. Dave thinks to himself that he’s dreamed this entire life for this moment, that he’ll finally be able to see the things that were brought back on the Hunt, that were usually off limits for anyone but the Hunters and police to see. And after all that he thought they were going to be, all they’re getting is a cart full of brown boxes. They’re not even allowed to open said boxes, only wheel them through the woods at any cost. Dave suddenly has no idea why he’s here. Was his thirst for freedom and importance and adventure really that strong? He thinks that Bro built up his expectations for this. Bro used to drop hints that what was inside the boxes was worth all of this. But Dave doesn’t even want to get a closer look at them. All he is is a delivery boy trained to kill.  
As they load up their cart he feels like he knows why Bro ran away from the whole damn Settlement.

The sun drops below the trees before the train puffs away, and they settle in for the night. It’s Dave’s turn to get a full night’s sleep, so of course he’s unable to close his eyes. Their sleeping bags are set up inside the small station, but Dave has angled himself so he can finally see the stars. They shine brighter, somehow, as he starts to think about what John said. About how close he was standing. The jumpy look on his face before the train’s whistle blew them apart. Dave is stupid when it comes to feelings, stupid when it comes to everything, but he’s seen John around schoolyard crushes before. Wide eyes, the posture. Dave almost laughs in the silence. He’s selfish to even think that John might like him like that.  
But he keeps thinking, turning away from the stars so he can half-glance at the boy who’s taking up most of his mind. He’s hunched over, kneeling on the wooden floor, carving into the side of the station with a knife. John’s large hands carve designs Dave can’t see from this angle, his eyebrows knitted together in concentration. Dave can’t help the way he nervously swallows. All those jokes during practice, the fact that they haven’t spent more than a couple days without each other their whole lives. The times when Dave would playfully smack his butt after a particularly good practice, teenage innuendo, all the times they laughed until they cried, the nights after Bro when Dave would somehow find John’s arms for comfort. Dave thinks he feels something in his chest, like John was there, carving into his heart the whole time.  
It is even more selfish for him to think that he might like John like that.

When the sun rises, so do they, rerolling their sleeping bags. Eridan lets out a loud yawn and collapses back into his warm sleeping bag, shivering. He stayed up for the second shift of the watch, and Dave totally understands what he means. As they all wordlessly wake themselves, Dave reaches for his pistol to check if it’s loaded for the thousandth time—a little exercise he’s taught himself so that he never runs out of bullets. He’s standing and readjusting his shades when he sees something. Rose must have seen it too, because he hears her drawing her knives.  
“Are those bodies?” Eridan asks, lifting his gun.  
“Get down!” Dave reacts on instinct, Rose’s voice echoing just as the first bullet hits right where John was standing. They scramble on the floor, unable to think of where to go, the three shots coming one by one. They hear rustling outside. Something is running through grass. Whatever it is is coming quick.  
Before Dave can tell her to stop Jade rises from where she was spread on the floor, aims her rifle and shoots, swearing when the rusting outside still coming. She turns to fall on the wooden planks again, but Dave watches as she takes a longer look over the rail.  
“Hey, get up guys, I might need backup.”  
Dave stands up, aiming his pistol before he looks over the railing. He can’t bother to count them now, but there are other humans raiding their supplies cart at the foot of the station.

“What the hell are you doing?” Dave shouts, as a girl with wildly curly hair goes from where some others are frozen to grab a box. Dave knows their mission—to protect those boxes. So, without thinking, he tells to Jade to shoot. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t do it himself. Jade does, just in time, because the girl is holding the box with one hand and lifting a gun toward them with the other. She drops to the ground, and the others around her hear the sound and stop where they are, looking up from where they’re running.  
Somehow Dave senses something next to him and he sees that along the line of aimed guns, John has risen his arms to form an X. Just as he was taught. Dave stares at him for what seems like forever. What is wrong with this kid.  
“Drop your weapons,” John barks, and Dave is impressed by how his police jacket seems fitting suddenly, even with his arms raised like an idiot. Some of them have guns, which they now ease up so that they’re at a standoff. So much for that, John.  
He can see them all now, six of them, one lying on the ground in a pool of her own blood.  
“What are you doing,” Eridan repeats, yelling from behind his massive gun. The kids down there look at it with glances of fear; Eridan’s gun twice the size of theirs.  
“We’re stealing your supplies, that’s what,” a girl with blonde hair and a grin says. Dave knits his brows, turning his gun to face her instead. He thinks he sees her raise an eyebrow.  
“What Settlement are you from?” Rose asks, surprisingly calm. The guests are silent until one of them, a short boy with ashy hair and a swollen lip, grumbles out “We don’t have a Settlement. Now give us all your goddamn boxes and we’ll be out of here.”  
“Karkat, they just killed Aradia for touching those things. They will kill all of us before you can say something else stupid,” this girl is holding a bow and arrow, an arrow in position but not raised.  
“Kanaya, put up your fucking bow, and don’t talk. I’m the leader, let me just pump their brains full of lead and we can head back.”  
Eridan cocks his gun. The coal-haired boy cringes.  
“If you’re not from a Settlement, where’d you come from?” Dave shouts.  
“Settlements aren’t the only way of living out in this hellhole. We’ve got a hundred living with us.”  
“And why don’t you just tell them exactly where we live too Sollux, and what we ate for fucking breakfast,” Karkat shouts at the boy who spoke, one with a hint of a lisp and mismatching boots.  
“Look, this was a mistake, can you just let us leave?” This girl’s chocolate skin practically glows as she gestures toward the boxes. The ashy boy screams profanities at her moments later.  
“We can organize something once you all drop your weapons,” John says loudly, over Karkat. Half of them do, but the blonde girl with the smile only tilts her head, gun still pointed. Dave makes sure his gun is aimed.  
Dave hears a small voice next to the cart. “Equius, just drop your hammer, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference,” A small girl, jacket way to big for her so that it almost touches the grass, says to a boy who is almost twice her size, gripping a hammer with both hands.  
“It could be a trap,” he says loudly. The ashen boy waves his arms, looking crazed.  
“Exactly!” he exclaims.  
“Look, we don’t actually want to kill you. Here, just put your weapons on the ground and we can all talk,” Jade says, her voice carrying over them all. She places her rifle on the ground.  
“Just do it, KK. I’m getting bored already.” The blonde girl shakes her hair out of her eyes and finally tosses her gun a little to the left. Dave puts his down too. Next to him Rose has dropped her knives to the floor and is looking one place in particular on the field. Dave tries to see, but all he sees is the short-haired girl who had dropped her bow. Karkat looks like he’s trying to decide whether or not to place his firearm on the freezing ground or to just go berserk and kill them all. But then something catches his attention and his gun lowers as fear touches his eyes.

Someone screams, and Dave’s eyes flicker to the cart with their boxes on them before letting his eyes settle on what’s coming for them. The Bodies are sprinting across the field, using their front limbs to propel them, teeth biting the air. Dave keeps looking from the cart to the creatures. Are the packages really that important? Even though he’s trained his entire life to think so, he decides against it as he vaults over the side of the railing and lands on the ground just as half of their new friends run for the line of trees. He shrugs them off, pulling out his gun, and running toward the Bodies. He suddenly feels something very wrong as he tears through the field.  
He’s forgotten his sword.  
The first couple of the monsters reach Dave within seconds. He shoots one in the head and it drops to the ground only feet from him, leaving Dave to pant while he stares at it’s unblinking dead eyes. He aims for another, knowing that he has ten shots left. There’s about twenty bodies, all groaning and howling and screeching from their torn lips. Dave has to dance around one that’s trying to get to his blind spot, sink it’s teeth in, and turn him into one of them.  
The chocolate skinned girl rushes up to Dave, panicked. “Watch my back,” she cries, and Dave nods wordlessly. He shoots another in neck, and it whips it’s head towards Dave, still alive and then running for him. He aims and shoots again, fear moving all the way to him fingers and freezing them just after he shoots. He hears gunshots all around him, guttural moans of dying Bodies, and Dave needs to get his sword. He has three bullets left and then he’s left to his knives. Dave looks behind him, seeing the girl he’s protecting jab a knife into a Body’s eye. She turns around as she rips it out and her mouth drops open, looking just above Dave’s head. He turns back around and jumps to the side just as a giant clawed hand grazes his left shoulder.  
He falls to the ground on his face and fumbles for his gun, turning over as the Body opens its mouth wide, ready to bite. He finds the trigger as he realizes he is about to get turned into a Body.  
He somehow loses his breath the same time his fingers find feeling, and shoots out of panic. Dave rolls out of the way as the Body lands where he was moments ago, splatters of crimson flying.  
Dave thinks that he hears a familiar voice, and he scrambles to get to his feet as he searches anxiously around him. There, all the way across the field, John is fighting two Bodies off with just a knife. But what makes Dave start to run toward him is the two figures coming out of the line of trees behind his best friend, stalking him while the others distract. Dave runs faster than he should be able to from how his arm begs him to stop, and suddenly someone’s calling his name. Dave stops as Jade comes racing, her pace uneven because she’s holding both her rifle and Dave’s sword. He takes it from her and nods, just nods quickly and panicked as a silent thanks. They take off together, Dave rushing and jumping and slicing one smooth stroke through one of the Body’s necks. It lands right in front of John. He looks down at it, then up at Dave. He still hasn’t seen the creatures coming up behind him. The Bodies start to run.  
“John!” Jade cries, raising her gun. He turns just as one reaches him, opening it’s mouth. Dave runs and leaps, attacking John in the most painful and terrifying tackle he’s ever experienced. They roll, the field slowly descending, hearing the shots of Jade’s gun a few feet away. Seconds later, Dave’s shades are halfway fallen off his face and John’s glasses are cracked a little. John has propped himself up on top of Dave, staring. They breathe and swallow. A drop of blood from a cut on John’s face drips.  
“Now I’m starting to feel like a Hunter.” Dave murmurs. He feels his stomach jump. John rolls off of him wordlessly.

His shoulder burns, and his coat has been ripped all along the side. Three claw marks scrape his skin, breaking it open. He takes off his coat to get a good look at it after seeing that all around him, the Bodies lay motionless. His friends still stand by the station, Rose positioned protectively in front of the boxes. He looks from his cut, blood welling on the surface, to the people around him, all covered in dirt and breathing heavily. The cuts sting, one of them feeling like it’s cutting through his muscle, and Dave sucks in through his teeth and stands.  
“Hey, you ok?” Dave looks to his left where the blonde girl stands. Up close, he sees that she has gauze over her left eye, and Dave has to wonder how you manage to lose your eye but not be killed out here.  
“Yeah,” Dave says, standing. He feels John on his other side, helping him stand. He wishes he could tell him to let go, but he doesn’t think that he’ll be able to stand on his own.

It takes them a while to regroup, the shock of it all waving over them. Somewhere in between wanting to kill each other off and being covered in Body blood they had all given up their hostility. Dave still doesn’t know who these people are, but the fact that they survived together somehow unites them.  
The first aid kit hadn’t been opened yet from their packs, until Vriska, the girl with the patched eye, confirms that Dave needs something on his arm. Dave hates the feeling of all of them watching his arm be wrapped. The huge boy Equius is pretty beat up, as he apparently refused to let the small girl move from behind his back, but nobody offers to patch him up. Dave feels like they’re doing this out of pity for the time on the bridge. Or maybe even for Bro. He get’s silently angry over it, letting the cuts throb.  
“We can’t stay here, the Bodies could be here within hours from the smell.” Sollux says as they all stand inside the station, using tissues to mop up bloody noses and water to clean off dirtied blades.  
“We have to get back to the Settlement.” Jade says.  
“Yeah, that’s our priority,” John says, and then turns to Dave. “But Dave isn’t fit to move all that way.” Dave wants to punch the soft look in his eyes.  
“I’m fine,” Dave snaps. Karkat, who hasn’t touched his bloody nose yet, eyes Dave skeptically.  
“We have more supplies over at our camp. It’s only a couple hour’s walk from here,” Karkat says.  
“First you try to kill us and now you want us to help? Seems a little too good to be true,” Dave monotones. Karkat points a finger at them.  
“You guys killed Aradia without a thought and we still want to help.”  
“Aradia was stealing on your orders,” Dave shoots back. Karkat tips his head up, frown plastered on, defeated.  
“Fine. We won’t help then,”  
“I didn’t need your help,” Dave murmurs.  
John pushes up toward the front of the group so he’s next to Dave now. “Come on, guys. Please,” Dave turns away from how he’s probably giving the worst case of puppy-eyes in existence. He hates the way his heart betrays him and feels tiny butterflies flutter at the thought of John trying this hard to help him.  
“Of course we’ll help.” The girl with the bow an arrow says. Her cheek is cut, and it drips down her neck. “Let us head out before more guests show up to this party,” she says, and Rose giggles next to her.

But before they leave, Dave pulls Jade and Rose aside.  
“Are we seriously going to follow them?” Dave says, making sure that none of the others can hear. Jade looks around them, too.  
“They’re going to help us out, Dave.”  
“Or turn on us once they’re sure we don’t know where we’re going.”  
John comes up behind him, joining their hushed circle.  
“Trust me guys, if they try anything, we can handle it.” Dave looks at John, setting his jaw. And then Rose breaks apart their circle after a heavy look that says they’re watching.

So they walk, each of them takes turns dragging the cart along the trail, the boxes strapped down but still jiggling with every bump of the forest floor. Their new allies seem to all group together toward the front, talking amongst each other. Which Dave finds suspicious. Why were they so set on stealing those boxes? Did they know what was inside? How did they even know where the station was? Dave doesn’t know how anyone else on his team hasn’t tried questioning them yet. In fact, within the first hour they all seem to be acting friendly around each other.  
And whether or not Dave will admit it, he ends up getting acquainted with everyone one way or another. The small girl’s name is Nepeta, and her best friend Equius walks with her directly in front of him, his muscles seeming permanently flexed. Nepeta seems set on making a point by trying to either climb up Equius’ back half the time or trying to walk in front of him, but he usually catches her before she gets too out of line. Dave glances at Equius’ muscles again and makes a mental note that no, he will not be getting on Equius’ bad side.  
Kanaya is the tan, tall girl with the pixie cut, and Rose all but abandons Jade in order to walk by her side. They’re in such an intense conversation right now that Dave doesn’t think he’d be able to break it if he tried. He doesn’t think Jade minds being left, however, because her and Karkat are walking side by side at the front of the group, Jade smiling at him like he’s not using “fuck” in every single one of his sentences. Vriska introduces the coffee-skinned girl, Feferi, who goes and hugs Dave, stopping their walking party all together. He’s thrown off by it, and he swallows when she says “I’m sorry I didn’t get there in time. You had my back and I didn’t have yours.” Once they pry her off of him Dave nods a little, glad his shades can hide his sad eyes.  
“I’m okay, really.” But now as he’s walking, Dave isn’t, and he knows it. It hurts to move his arm. It hurts to hold his sword. After only about fifteen minutes John comes over by him and asks him how he feels.  
“Fine,” Dave squeezes out.  
“You’re arm is halfway sawed off, trooper. You’re anything but fine.” What started off as a joke is now hanging in the cold air between them. “This is why you shouldn’t have come.”  
“John—“ Dave starts, not wanting this again. It’s been only a day and he doesn’t want to be mad at John again. “I would have come even if you did get me kicked off. I would have climbed the whole fucking wall.” John looks at him, and then to his arm.  
“You would? Why would you want this that badly?” John makes a gesture to all around them.  
“Why would you?” Dave questions. John sets his jaw.  
“It’s my job.”  
“So you’re doing it for your Dad,”  
“I never said that.”  
“You want to make him proud, don’t you, John.” Their hands brush while they walk, Dave breaths in quickly, and John stays quiet for a long time.  
“Well why did you want this?”  
“Because I want to find Bro.” John stops mid-step.  
“What? You were going to what—ditch us and go looking for him? Leave just like he did?”  
“I didn’t know what I was going to do! I just wanted to get out here and then figure it out.”  
John lets out a little bewildered breath.  
“You weren’t even doing this for the sake of the Settlement? You were just—“  
“I am in it for the Settlement, I want to get home and help the Settlement just as much as you. I just really need to find Bro too,”  
“He could be a Body. He could be dead. Dave, you can’t risk your life just to find out.”  
“You shouldn’t care, John, about whether I die or not. Jesus. If I want to go fuck around and kill myself off you should be saying ‘good riddance. That kid was an idiot.’”  
They walk another five minutes in silence. They’ve fallen to the very back of the group, and Sollux yells for them to keep up.  
Dave watches the puffs of white air leave John and then glances at his lips, slightly parted, eyes looking forward. His thoughts from last night come back.  
“So, yesterday at the station. You seemed pretty upset with what Rose told me.” John’s posture goes rigid. Dave keeps looking at him. “That you told your dad to stop me in order to keep me safe.”  
John laughs nervously. “Is that what she told you,” Dave looks at him out of the corner of his eye, smirking.  
“Now, why would you want to kill Rose for something as simple as that?” Dave knows from the way John’s neck stretches, how his puffs of breath become faster, that he was right. And he’s so happy.  
“Because, you know…that’s pretty embarrassing, and stuff. I didn’t want you thinking that I was too concerned with your safety, because you have this whole independent thing going on, but of course I care about you Dave. I don’t want you to have a ripped up arm or to be sad but I also don’t want you running away and leaving me.”  
“John.” He stares straight ahead, his ramble starting to come out of his mouth.  
“I—“  
“We’re here!” A shout comes from the front of the pack; and Dave glances at John with what he hopes says everything. They start run together, catching up. Dave’s heart beats fast and his arm kills as he jogs, but he thinks he likes John. He likes the way he runs, the way he breathes. He likes the way he stops and takes an awestruck look around their allies’ camp and he likes the way John looks at him after realize he’s being stared at. He even likes the way he asks him what he’s doing.

The camp is a on an abandoned road, which Dave’s never seen outside of the Settlement before. Tents are set up all along the road underneath a bridge made of concrete that sits low over the road beneath it. It doesn’t seem like very much, but Feferi says “they only sent us out to go scavenge for a few weeks.”  
“They?” Dave asks. She doesn’t answer.  
“Don’t you guys have any protection?” Rose questions.  
“We have guns.”  
Under the bridge Dave can see the road extending either way, fields on one side and trees on the other. They extend in straight lines as far as Dave can see, and in the early afternoon sun either road look angelic. Dave wants to run down them both and never stop.

They immediately go to patch everybody up with their medical supplies; even Equius, who originally refuses. Five of them sit in a tent to unwrap Dave’s bloody gauze, and it stings. Kanaya removes it for him, her gentle smile sort of making him feel better, even if he is on guard from these people every second. John is right there and he watches closely until all of their close proximity fogs up Dave’s shades. He takes them off and he can feel eyes on him. When he glances up, Rose grins.  
“I’ve never seen you with those off,” She says. Dave raises an eyebrow.  
“Like what you see?” Dave winces as some of the gauze presses back into his cut, and Kanaya’s winces along with him.  
“I apologize.”  
“Have your eyes always been that color?” Rose asks.  
“It’s a genetic thing,” Dave says, wanting to avert his eyes. The red always throws people off, but having Rose smile sort of makes him able to relax a little more. He takes a glance up at John as Kanaya readies her antiseptic spray. Dave is so jealous of his sky blue irises. If he had eyes like that he would never wear shades again, even though shades are fucking cool. John’s eyes squint up a bit when he gives a small smile, and Dave wishes he had his shades back so he could hide the look he accidentally gives.  
“I’m sorry Dave, but this is probably going to hurt.” Kanaya shakes the can one last time and Dave hides his head in his other shoulder. It hurts, a lot, but somehow the pain fades. He think it might just be his brain wishing for it, but he thinks he feels a couple light fingers brush his own when she sprays the deepest of cuts.

After Kanaya sprays the sterile spray and Dave can breath again, she eyes the cuts while biting her bottom lip.  
“Well?” Dave asks.  
“How do you feel about stitches?” Dave looks at everyone in the tent. Feferi looks at him like she might burst into tears. Rose looks down and John’s gaze bores into Dave’s with his mouth shut tight.  
“Have you done those before?” Dave asks. Kanaya shrugs.  
“I’m a seamstress. I gave Equius stitches once before, but then again, I don’t even know if he feels pain.” Dave doesn’t like the idea of needles, but he also doesn’t like the gash in his arm.  
“Okay, I guess.”  
“Do you think it can wait until he gets to the Settlement?” John asks. Kanaya looks from Dave to John and then lowers her shoulders.  
“I am afraid there might infections if we don’t at least close the wound.” John nods and sulks back. Dave sighs.  
“Fine, just do it then.”  
Rose brings a sterilized needle and some of Kanaya’s thread and Kanaya tells Dave to hold a conversation with the others as she does her work. So he gathers them all together in front of him while Kanaya works on his side and tells the story of the time he let a crow loose in his fifth grade classroom. Feferi laughs until she’s doubled over, and John looks back at Dave in awe. Dave hisses when he starts to feel the needle working, and without his shades he feels naked, his red eyes starting to water mid-story. He doesn’t let any of the tears slip out, but he feels ashamed all the same. When he’s stitched up he thanks Kanaya, and then her and Rose leave to put back the supplies. He’s told to get some rest, but going to sleep feels unnatural after getting an entire night’s rest the night before. Feferi leaves to go patrol the borders of the small camp and then John leaves him too, for reasons Dave doesn’t ask. John takes out Dave’s IPod before he leaves, asks him to lift his head so he can put the earbuds in, and then leaves as a steady stream of baseline and words comes echoing through Dave’s head, lulling him to a painful sleep.

When he wakes up it’s just past sunset, and his arm is in so much pain. He turns his aching neck to take a quick glance at it and cringes. Around him, all he hears is silence, and he starts to fear that maybe they did kill his friends. He starts to stand up, not bothering to put on a coat or his shades. His t-shirt’s sleeve had been cut off before Kanaya started sewing him back together, so the cold air has to hit his new stitches as he walks out of the tent. The only person he sees in the circle of tents is Vriska, who’s sitting and warming her hands in front of the fire. Dave comes up next to her.  
“We didn’t kill your friends, if that’s what you’re going to ask. They’re over by the other fire.” Dave sits next to her, his hurt shoulder facing away from her. He doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t want her to see it.  
“What happened to your eye?” he ends up asking. She looks at him, huffing out a laugh.  
“Body clawed me in the face.” Dave knits his eyebrows together. “Yeah, doesn’t feel good. But I guess you know that,” she jerks her elbow to his shoulder. Yeah, Dave does know.  
Minutes pass between them. They can hear the distant sound of the rest of them talking on the other side of the tents. Dave stares at the fire.  
“Hey, maybe you explained this to everyone while I was passed out, but where are you guys from?” Vriska looks up at the sky.  
“Well, first, we did.” Dave shakes his head to himself. Of course. “There’s about a hundred of us, staying in an abandoned office building over in the city,” she jerks her head toward the road leading to the fields in front of them. Dave narrows his eyes.  
“I thought all cities were blocked off. That the Bodies were so bad that they just…cut them off completely.”  
“Yeah, they’re pretty shitty. But we needed shelter, and we found it there.”  
“Why don’t you guys come to a Settlement?”  
“We all just can’t live inside those walls, you know? It’s not like we’re all insane, we’re just hungry for adventure, right? Plus, people in Settlements don’t get to kill many Bodies, do they?” Vriska says, glancing back at Dave roguishly. “Besides you guys.”  
“So you’re adrenaline junkies,” Dave says with a tiny laugh.  
“Yeah. Pretty stupid, huh.” She tilts her head back.  
“So stupid.” Dave looks up with her. He’d forgotten about the stars, winking at him from millions of miles away. The same ever since he stared at them in his old room. In the railroad station. He thinks for a long time, and then it hits him. An adrenaline junkie. The only parent he’d ever heard to spar with his six year old, the only one crazy enough to leave his Hunting team in the middle of a mission.  
“Hey Vriska, do you by any chance know a Bro Strider?” he murmurs. She snorts.  
“Bro Strider. Yeah, he was a total lunatic. He’s killed more Bodies than any of us.”  
Dave can’t move.  
“And…is he alive…now?”  
“Before we left he was about as alive as I am.” Dave turns to her, all his slow-talking smoothness diminishing over a couple seconds.  
“I’m Dave Strider. That’s my brother. You have to take me to him, I have to know he’s ok!” Vriska’s eyes go wide, and then she breathes out through her nose.  
“I don’t know if you want to see him, Dave Strider.”  
“What?”  
“The guy’s been really on edge lately. He goes from hacking at chunks of wood to staring into the forest…he always looks like he feels guilty about something.”  
“Guilty about what?”  
“Beats me.”  
Dave sits. “Did he ever mention me?”  
“No, but everyone could kind of tell that he had left something big behind. A group just like ours right now found him wandering the woods alone, and he sort of just stayed when he got to our hideout. He talked about not wanting anything to hold him back. Then he didn’t say much.” The wind blows hard. Dave can’t move. “But hey, I should have put two and two together about you two way before. He was the one who told us about the station, saying that there’d be a group of kids that would go there around now. He told us to get the boxes.”  
Dave can’t breathe. This was his brother she was talking about. The brother who went missing on his Hunt. The one who everyone thought was dead.  
“He told you…to try to get the boxes?” Dave couldn’t imagine his Bro telling a group to try to sabotage a Hunt. But then again, he couldn’t imagine his brother running away from the Settlement, either. Maybe he never even knew him at all.  
“Did he ever tell anyone what was in the boxes?”  
Vriska shakes her head. They sit for minutes, Dave trying to process it. He only seems to be set on the fact that Bro is alive. He cannot believe he’s alive.  
“He must have gotten separated from the rest of his Hunt.”  
“I don’t know, Strider. He never talked to me.”  
“You have to take me to him.”  
“Yeah, I’ll take you to him.” Dave breathes for a couple seconds. Bro’s alive. He’s going to see him again.  
“Thanks,” Dave whispers, exasperated.  
“You wanna go over by the fire?”  
“Yeah,” Dave answers, and he pushes himself to his feet, letting out one tiny wince.  
“It’s times like this that I wish there were no Bodies to begin with,” she says, guiding him over between two tents. Dave grunts.  
“Hell yeah.”

Rose finally broke out the liquor. Her and Kanaya are practically sitting in each other’s laps, Eridan and Feferi are carving messages into the concrete sides of the bridge with knives, and Jade and Karkat are—oh. Jade has her arms looped around Karkat’s head loosely, and he’s kissing her with more energy than Dave thought he would have in his small body. By the fire, Sollux, Nepeta and Equius are lounging, and Nepeta gives an excited wave as Vriska leads Dave over to the fire, hands in pockets.  
“Well look who decided to show,” Sollux lisps, and Dave gives a tentative wave. Karkat and Jade have stopped making out so Karkat can yell “HE LIVES” in an obviously drunk and embarrassing manner.  
“Let me see that handiwork,” Eridan says, walking over with Feferi on his hip. He must be drunk too, because he actually gives a curt nod of approval when Dave turns so he can see his shoulder. The fire gives them all an orange-ish glow to their faces, and Dave suddenly senses something’s off.  
“Where’s John,” He says. He fears the worst suddenly, wandered or killed or—he suddenly feels Rose by his side. She’s holding a wine bottle, one of the six lying around, and she offers it to Dave. He asks her where John is. She shrugs, waiting for him to take the bottle. He tips it back and takes a few gulps. It’s pretty good, if he’s being picky.  
“Hey Dave,” John says next to him. Dave flinches, seeing John giggle in response. “How’s your arm?”  
“I’m like a fucking ragdoll,” Dave says, taking another swig of the wine. He realizes that all the others have gone back to their making out or chatting under the shadows of the bridge, and Dave turns back to John, talking pointedly.  
“Hey. Do you want to talk?”  
“Sure.”  
“Where’d you come from?”  
“On top of the bridge. I’ll show you.” Dave is unable to let go of the wine bottle because of the shock of John grabbing his hand and dragging him to the side of the bridge, into the grass, then up and incline until Dave hits the open air.  
“Okay, but this is literally the greatest view I’ve ever seen.” John looks around them and shrugs while Dave turns in a small circle. Dave then points a finger up. Without the light of the fire to distract him, the stars look like they’re snowflakes, falling in the snow globe of the camp. Up here, Dave is on another road, Dave’s view of two directions turning to four. He goes to lean against the guard rail that protects him from the road below, stretching over it so he can feel like he did up on Rust Bridge. Above him he can make out constellations and smell the crisp air and damn it, he is so cold in his t-shirt. John knows somehow, and he takes off his black jacket and goes to drape it around Dave.  
“Oh, fuck off, bro. I’m not your cheap date,” Dave starts laughing as John does it anyway. John sits down cross-legged, and Dave follows, placing the wine bottle to the side of them. His conversation with Vriska is still taking up most of his thoughts, followed by John’s eyes. Seriously, it’s like somebody scooped two stars from the endless pile up there and they placed them right there behind those glasses.  
“I…uh…I found out where my Bro is.” Dave feels insane saying it. John perks at that, his hands settling in his lap and fidgeting.  
“How? Where is he?”  
“Vriska told me. He lives with them. With Feferi and Nepeta and Karkat and—“  
“And you’re going back with them.” Dave hates the sudden look of realization. Then Dave sees the goosebumps on his pale skin and takes the jacket off, handing it back to him.  
“I’m not cold,” John mumbles, looking down. Dave drapes it around John’s shoulders anyway. John sits, staring at the ground, as Dave starts to play a few chords his head, until he’s humming the tune out loud. As he does, John takes the wine bottle and downs it; only stopping for breaths.  
“Dude, you’re gonna drink yourself to death,” Dave takes the wine bottle from him, laughing when John smiles wide afterwards.  
“Then maybe I wouldn’t have to see you go,” John says, laughing. Dave watches as he stands then, taking the empty wine bottle and throwing it across the road until they both hear it shatter. John plops back down into his spot on the road, closer than before. John looks straight at him, Dave feeling more conscious that John can see his eyes then ever before.  
“You should wear your shades less often. Your eyes are so great,” John drawls, and Dave averts his eyes toward the ground. He can’t just sit here after John has said that.  
Dave glances to John next to him, the far side of his face covered in blood, a tear in his skin over his left eye. Dave knows he looks worse from the pain all over body, but John turns back to look at him like he isn’t covered in the color that matches his eyes.  
He feels warmth tingling over his entire body, and he forgets everything about what might stop him as he reaches over and grabs both sides of John’s face. So what if he hasn’t told him that he likes him—he’ll show somehow. Dave breathes once, shaking, then presses their lips together. John flinches like he’s been shocked, their lips sticking together from the cold, and Dave keeps his eyes squeezed shut tight. He panics. Who did he think he was, kissing his best bro like a total freak half-drunk on a highway. And then John moves his arms to around Dave’s neck.  
John moves his mouth, and the butterflies in Dave topple over and over like waves inside him. John somehow washes away every thought, the waves pulling Dave under. His lips taste like metal from how they’re chapped and broken and Dave doesn’t think he’s kissing right, but then John smiles in between a kiss as they come up for air and Dave forgets everything again. In the dark, Dave can see only John’s eyes, those damn eyes, looking back at him.  
“I was supposed to keep you safe,” John says, drunk. Dave pulls him in for another. He lets go of his bottom lip with a little pop, and John looks up at him with a tiny sigh.  
“I can take care of myself.”  
“Let me take care of you, Dave.”  
“I’m sorry,” the conversation is interrupted by kisses until they forget what they were even trying to talk about. Dave leaves his hands near John’s face, keeping him steady. He can’t stand to have him look away from him again.  
“I’m leaving with them tomorrow, John.” Their breath puffs around them. John looks at him.  
“Then I’m coming with.”  
“No you’re not. You’re going home.”  
“I’m the head of this Hunt and I’m not leaving you here.” Dave dives in for another kiss and John returns it, then breaking it and going to rest his head on Dave’s good shoulder.  
“I almost got you to stay back, to have you stay alive for sure. Now I can’t even be sure you’ll make it back home. I can’t let you leave,” Dave knows that John can feel his heartbeat humming now.  
“And if your plan worked, you expected me to be fine with you leaving and maybe never coming back? That’s a little selfish, Egderp.”  
“I had to come. I have responsibilities,” John whispers.  
I know,” Dave murmurs.  
John raises his head and Dave seizes the opportunity to taste blood again. John kisses him now like its goodbye, which Dave supposes it is. It was hello and goodbye. Gone as soon as it came. 

They return after the moon watches from directly above, everyone gone or asleep but Karkat and Equius. Equius sits by the orange glow and lazily plays with a sleeping Nepeta’s hair. His meaty hands seemed incapable of such delicate movements, but Dave watches it with fondness. He feels like he’s known these people forever, after just a day. This morning he could have been killed by them. This afternoon he didn’t trust them. It was strange to think that he now cared about a group of rebels who almost killed them on orders from his brother.  
“Vriska told us about your family history, Dave,” Karkat mentions as John and Dave sit, leaning against the side of the concrete together.  
“Yeah. I’m coming with you guys tomorrow.” Dave says. Karkat looks satisfied, tending to the fire with a stick, his crazed hair tinted red from the light.  
“So you and Jade, huh,” Dave drawls, and assumes that she must have gone to the tents with Rose and Kanaya.  
“Yeah,” Karkat says, his permanent frown tipping up a little. “That’s why I’m going back with you, John.” Dave wants to be more surprised than he actually is. But it’s not like Jade would just let him go like that.  
“The more the merrier,” John says. Karkat looks between the two of them.  
“So you and John, huh,” Karkat says to Dave, and he has to fight the urge to fully smile as John moves to hold his hand.  
“Yeah.”  
Dave hears a little yip from Nepeta, her eyes opening, and John cracks up.  
John wraps his sleeping bag behind them and Dave uses his as a blanket, and then they curl into each other like they could be sitting on a couch in their living room, not covered in deep cuts, a sword and gun sitting between them. John breathes into his chest, and Dave can look at him all he wants until his eyes get heavy. Dave can’t let himself sleep until he’s tucked the sleeping bag up to his chin and whispered “did you really like me all that time?” and John whispers back “unfortunately, yes”.  
He’s going to miss this, laying like this with John. Either for a little while or forever.

The dew has collected along Dave’s shades when the light hits his eyes in the morning. John is breathing slowly, alive, against his chest. The fire is out and even under these blankets Dave is freezing. He clenches his teeth and tries to stretch out his nose that the cool air tickles. His eyes flicker over to the open air, only a few feet away from under the bridge. The sky is a frosted white, swirls of gray that slowly sink into Dave’s stomach as he thinks about what today is. What today is going to mean.  
Nobody else has camped out under the bridge, but Dave hears voices over by the tents—the gentle sound of chatter and clacking of equipment that awoke him. John shifts, and when he slightly lifts his head Dave whispers his hello. John burrows back into Dave’s shirt forcefully with a grunt of disapproval, but Dave’s arm shifts against the concrete behind them and he hisses through clenched teeth. John lifts his head that time, glasses halfway off his face and staring. He glances at the stitches, and Dave sets his lips in a straight line.  
“We always used to talk about the scars we would get from our Hunts.” John says quietly. It takes Dave a second, but he remembers. Puffy-haired John and his teeth standing on the kitchen table pointing to his chest, saying that they’ll have to sew him back together after all the things he’s going to fight off. Dave, a cocky twelve year old, would jokingly point to his thin arms and imagine all the white jagged scars that would kiss themselves there like trophies.  
“It’s ironic, that you used to talk about that. And now you’ll have one.”  
“Irony is my thing, remember, Egbert?” and John looks at Dave’s broken skin. It kills; the stitches hurting more than the cut, and Dave wonders if Kanaya’s deft hands are to blame. He wants to take his sword and cut his whole arm off.

They walk over to the circle of tents, and are met with a bustling group of kids bringing firewood, talking in groups or preparing a meal all in a twenty meter space. Dave watches the harmony, saying his silent hello to everyone in their little stir. Through the space in between the tents next to him, he can see Eridan keeping patrol, pacing back and forth with his monstrous gun on his shoulder. Ever since Tavros he’d had his jaw set, and Dave can see it’s loosened a little.  
The allies have more food than all of the Hunters put together, and they pool it together on top of a blanket in a buffet of sorts for breakfast. Dave eats real bread, unaware of how the hell they could have bread out here and how it tastes so good. Vriska tells everyone about Bro Strider, to which all eyes fall on Dave afterward. They explain the boxes, a little awkwardly because of the fact that they tried to kill each other yesterday. Jade listens to Karkat talk to the entire group that he’s resigning in his position as leader and coming back to the Settlement with Jade, and then suddenly they’re all picking which direction they will be headed. Dave is shocked how easily they decide. Where he’s headed must not be that bad of a place to leave.

Their goodbyes come a little after breakfast, and though it’s not quick, Dave feels like it all happens too fast. One minute they’re eating and then the next they’re packing all their tents up and putting them on top of their backpacks. The space under the bridge becomes bare besides a few empty bottles of Rose’s alcohol, and they’re all milling around and waiting for the inescapable. Dave wishes he were numb to every one of these people. He wishes that he hadn’t met them and that he would be thinking about their safely every second of his journey to find Bro. Half if his friends were about to leave him, and even though he doesn’t want to, he knows he’ll miss Karkat too. He slides his sword into its holster, plays with his bullets, and stands with his group that are departing. Equius, Nepeta, and Vriska all group by him, giving him a pat on the shoulder as he tries not to look toward the others. He’s surprised when he sees Eridan come up next to him, an inch taller yet still looking over his nose.  
“I’m coming with you, Strider.” And he doesn’t explain, just waits for Feferi to come up and give him a tiny smile.  
Jade, Rose, Karkat, Kanaya, John. Five names that he may never see the owners of, as they stand in a group opposite of him. Kanaya gave him his medical supplies in the morning, along with another dose of antiseptic. She checks the stitches, gives him a tight squeeze around the other arm, and kisses his forehead with her emerald lips. Rose hugs him and whispers that she knows he’s strong. He looks at her violet eyes and nods, the lump in his throat being constantly pushed away by swallows. Jade cries; tiny sobs as she holds Dave and tells him to come back home safe.  
“You won’t even have time to miss me. I’ll be back faster than that dog of yours can steal lunchmeat,” and she laughs through her tears. Karkat gives a curt nod and a handshake. Dave almost starts to turn away, when John walks stiffly up to Dave and wraps him in a rigid hug. Dave hugs back, thinking back to the night before. How badly he wants to pull John closer, to kiss his dry lips.  
“Stay safe.” John says. Dave blinks back tears and pulls him tighter, the toes of their boots touching.  
“I’ll tell Bro you say hello.”  
“I’ll tell Dad not to go too hard on you for running off,” Dave touches his lips to John’s cheek. He could have lived his whole without knowing that it was wet.  
Dave knows he could have kissed him on the lips then, their story bursting to life in a passionate, wrenching kiss that would make Dave unable to leave him, but they both know that that isn’t them. That isn’t their story. So John squeezes his hand and turns the opposite direction, and turning away, Dave heaves through his shaking lips and follows these stranger’s backs, into the morning light. He doesn’t turn back once.

It doesn’t hit Dave that he still has his and Tavros’ radio until a beeping noise comes from inside his backpack. He pauses, even Equius at the front of the group turning around, a curious look coming from all of them. Another beep. Dave drops his bag to the ground and pokes around inside it, pulling out the radio with careful hands. Had Dave accidently taken Rose’s food supply? Was Karkat changing his mind? Dave raises the radio to his mouth and presses a button that makes a tiny click as he speaks into it. His eyes catch Nepeta’s as she looks worriedly over her shoulder.  
“What’s wrong?” Dave asks into the device. The radio crackles a little and then Jade’s voices screams through, and Dave’s blood goes colder than the air around him.  
“Dave, there’s so many of them. There’s at least thirty. We’re running back down the road toward you guys,” There’s a moment of dead air and Dave looks up at the others. Jade sounds winded when her voice returns. “They’re gaining on us. Run Dave, tell the others to run and get ready to shoot.” Dave moves the radio back to his lips, threatening to break the damn thing by how hard he’s gripping it.  
“Okay. Don’t waste any bullets. We’ll be just ahead of you.” Dave grips the radio and looks around to them. Equius rolls his hammer around in his hand, dried blood still on the end of it. Nepeta takes out a handgun, too large in her tiny hands. She looks twice her size by the look on her face.  
“Let’s go, then,” Eridan says. Dave’s breathes.

They run for a while, Dave’s arms pumping, his sword close to his side and his gun on his hip. They hear the shouts after minutes, still on the road. Dave recognizes John’s voice easily, screaming, and Dave whips around with a jagged breath and his eyes stinging. Turning the corner of the road, John is carrying someone and sprinting. Dave realizes, stopping dead in his tracks, that it’s Jade. The blood trickles down the toe of her boot and into to the ground, and John shouts for help again. Rose, Kanaya and Karkat round the corner, eyes panicked, screaming at Dave to keep running. Dave looks back to the rest of his team, running far in front of him, looking over their shoulders and yelling at Dave to keep going. He can’t move his legs. He feels the train whistle against his skin, the memories of the cool air and Terezi’s cries and the green eyes looking at him. He should have let the train hit him. At least then he wouldn’t have to see those green eyes again as they round the corner behind Rose.  
He’s never seen so many, and he his instincts kick in and he immediately turns and runs next to John holding a bleeding Jade.  
“What are we gonna do,” John screams. Dave doesn’t know. He knows he’s a dead man from the burning in his hurt arm, but he cant let any of the others go down. He cant let the panic in John’s eyes slow him down.  
“Run,” Dave screams back. Kanaya has slowed, raising her bow and placing an arrow in it before turning and shooting a body straight through the eye and out the other side. Dave shoots a couple that have gone ahead of the group and they fall to the ground, their giant corpses falling feet from the barrel of his gun. He then starts running again, and right as he turns around he sees another group of them coming out through the side of the trees in front of him. Equius jumps and bashes the first few with just his bare fists, the rest of them holding their breath for him. Everything goes fuzzy in Dave’s eyes as the pure terror rocks over him, a flood of waves coming over his eyes and washing over him until he’s finally numb.  
He lifts his sword just as a Body rips its way from the trees and pounces toward him. He slices off a clawed hand, and when the body rears it’s head and screams, Dave runs forward and drops it to the ground.  
Eridan’s black hair is falling into his face and there’s a slice on his neck, and his heavy breathing is all Dave can hear as the next Body comes up to the both of them. This one is larger than the last, it’s magnificent teeth gnashing the open air. Dave rushes forward but the Body turns at the last second, taking Eridan into it’s jaws. Dave watches the teeth go in and out of Eridan’s shoulder, one tooth piercing his heart, slow motion behind his foggy eyes, and someone screams behind him. Eridan’s face goes pale, the humming in Dave’s ears constant, as his dead body quickly starts to transform itself. His arms grow long, his inhuman bones cracking and breaking into place as the infection finally takes over his face. Dave watches as Eridan growls and cries out, and then a bullet finds his head. Eridan falls. Dave breathes. Another body is behind him.  
Through the mist in front of Dave’s eyes he reacts on instinct, until all his bullets are gone and he can only rely on his sword for the crowd of Bodies around them. He wants to feel the sword in both his hands, feel it swing through both his arms, but every time he tries moving his left arm it’s a race of fire down to his fingertips. He hisses through his teeth and goes on.  
It’s only then when Dave remembers the boxes, the precious boxes that the rest of his team must have left back there in the woods. He hasn’t a second to care before he feels the splatter of warm blood on his back and Vriska is standing, knife in hand, smiling at Dave like she’s having the time of her life with her eyes wide. Adrenaline junkie. Behind Vriska, a missive Body rears up on its claws on Kanaya and she aims her final arrow and shoots it in the heart. Dave rushes over to her, nodding in a silent agreement and then stabbing a Body next to them. Kanaya looks nervously behind her, then calls to Rose and holds out her hand. Rose stands from where she’s kneeling over an injured Nepeta and holds out one of her knives. Kanaya reaches for it, and Rose pushes forward and kisses Kanaya lightly on the cheek, holding the knife with her. Dave stands and watches, struggling to breathe. Then Kanaya turns and rushes away, her shirt tattered at the bottom and her legs pumping.  
It’s all too much of a rush, so Dave focuses on the only thing he knows. His feet switch from the grass to concrete of the road, almost slip on something’s blood and then is just in time to see Sollux get swiped to shreds by a body’s claw. Dave pauses, terrified, as the thing turns and roars at him. Dave’s hands automatically grip the sword, threatening to rip his stitches already. He ducks its swipes at him, slashing at it’s ankle. When he finds a vulnerable point he swipes, and blood drenches his hands. He’s sick of this. He’s sick of being alive and being dead and being in the limbo in between.  
Karkat let’s out a giant scream as he kills the Body standing over him. Behind him, Feferi is trying to use her coat to stop the flow of blood from Jade’s leg. Dave comes to his senses behind his mess of blonde hair and covered in blood, and screams to Karkat if he knows where John is. There’s the screech of a dying Body a few feet away, and Equius and his hammer stand above it when it collapses. Karkat reloads his gun, eyes flitting nervously up and down to his work and the scene around him.  
“I don’t know. I didn’t see him go down,” and Dave is relieved with the chance that John is alive. All around him is noise in the silence, and the burst of thoughts in his head that are blocked with the veil of needing to survive through this. He grabs his sword and through the blood on his shades he sees John using a gun that must have belonged to a dead ally and rolling on the ground before coming up and shooting a body in the shoulder. It rears around and groans, coming for him, and Dave is running. John goes to shoot his gun and Dave watches in horror as John realizes he has no bullets left. John looks up at the creature as it swipes a claw toward him and he dives out of the way. Dave is almost there. He raises his sword. The Body follows where John has rolled and swipes again, the sound of tearing fabric and skin sharp in Dave’s ears. Dave screams, finally reaching the killer and raising his sword. He hears to his left the explosion of a gun and the Body right in front of Dave collapses before he can kill it. When it does fall, he sees John, lying in a pool of his own blood.  
Feferi stands at the other end of the gun. She comes over to Dave, and asks him if he’s all right. Dave feels like he’s underwater, unable to fully hear her as he stares down at John’s closed eyes. He feels her shouting to him, touching his arm where the stitches are broken and he’s bleeding again. Time goes in even more slow motion when he ignores her and walks over to John, gradually kneeling down next to him. John is scratched open, the damage only half hidden by his black police coat. His golden badge is completely soaked over in someone’s blood. More underwater noises come as the fighting dies down, and Dave continues to stare down at John’s closed eyes. He finds his neck, checks for a pulse, his fingers shaking, and finds one, one unsteady beat after another. His breath roughly passes through his throat as he chokes out a sob, tears welling in his eyes. He reaches both his hands around John’s head and leans right over him.  
“Hey, John. Wake up.” Dave stares down, inches away. His eyes stay closed. John’s lips are parted, his face pale and his lip bleeding. Dave finally glances up above him, seeing that all the Bodies that surrounded them are dead, lying in all sorts of gruesome poses of death, and the others are looking almost Bodies themselves. Dave watches as Karkat leans over Jade on the ground and his eyes meet Dave’s. He’s crying too.  
The first snowflake finds its way to Dave’s cheek, and Dave watches his breathe puff out in front of him as it starts to snow. He turns back to John, his face turning paler. He checks for a pulse again. It’s still there. He shucks his coat off, wincing several times from his torn stitches, and then removes John’s coat as best as he can. There, through John’s t-shirt, are cuts deeper than Dave’s, blood spilling over as Dave starts to really cry. He bites his lip to contain his sobs as he feels all his walls come crashing down around him. He didn’t want this. He never wanted this. How could anyone want this?

He wraps John tightly with his jacket to try to stop the blood, his hands already covered in it and trembling. He tells himself to keep it together, but no, he can’t. He never wanted this. The pride and gruesome glory that Hunters got could have it to themselves. Dave doesn’t want this anymore. He wants John to live.  
“Here, let me help.” Vriska kneels down next to Dave and adjusts Dave’s homemade bandage as Dave leans back and cries. He keeps his eyes on John’s unmoving body and cries for everything that has happened. He cries just for the hell of it.  
Jade comes to minutes later, screaming about her leg, and Kanaya rushes away from her work with John to go make a homemade splint. John is still unconscious. Feferi has gone to go get water to maybe wake John up, and Vriska and Equius are trying to get Nepeta to start walking again. Dave sits, tiny tears still coming from his eyes, as he fumbles with his sword. He feels cold and sticky and dirty and tired. The smell is hurting his eyes from the dead creatures that litter the road and he just wants to go home. He keeps his eyes locked on John and bites the sleeve of his shirt to keep himself sane.  
Feferi returns with the water and together they pour a little over John’s face. He comes to, sputtering, eyes huge and sucking in air. His eyes squeeze closed with pain.  
“John, John it’s okay. I’m here. No, don’t try to move.” John struggles to sit up, heaving through his injured chest. He starts to groan, his eyes opening again.  
“Dave,” he says. He tries to leans up again. “Hey.” Dave guides him so he’s lying down again.  
“Hi, John. You’re really cut up. You’re gonna need to be sewn back together when we get back to the settlement, all right?” John looks to Dave, his pained expression suddenly turning to a smile.  
“I don’t think I’m going to make it to the Settlement.”  
“Shut the hell up. You and I both know you’re ten times as tough as anyone out here. Now just sit tight for now, we’ll put you on the cart with the boxes or something. You’ll be fine.”  
“The cart’s got to be a mile away. Maybe the Bodies got to it—“  
“John. I love you, but you need to shut up. It’s not good for your chest to keep talking,”  
John reaches for Dave’s hand. “I love you too. I’ll just let you take me home.” John says.  
“Don’t worry about it,” Dave says, leaning in to kiss John once on the lips. “And once we’re home, I’m never leaving your side.”  
“And you’re never leaving mine.” John says. Dave wipes his eyes behind his glasses. He sits, cross-legged, next to John’s weak body, holding his hand, looking around then. John moans again from the pain, and Dave needs to distract him somehow.  
“You know the night on Rust Bridge, when I jumped off?” John nods wearily. Dave feels it all rushing back to him.  
“I got a text from you. Right before the train was going to hit me. That’s what made me jump, John. You.” John’s eyes widen, staring up at him. Dave hadn’t thought about that text, buried at the bottom on the river, in what seems like forever. He guesses that was what it always was, John saving him. “You saved me,” Dave says.  
John reaches up one bloody arm and pulls Dave from behind the head to his face.  
“You are such a dumbass.”  
“As are you.” John kisses him and recoils, laying his head back down. 

And so in the end, Kanaya, Rose, Karkat, Feferi, Jade, Nepeta, Vriska, Equius, John and Dave are alive. Their lungs are breathing and their hearts are beating. Once Jade learns to stand, disoriented and quiet, they all group around John and somehow get him into Dave and Equius’ arms. Dave says that he’s not going anywhere without John, behind teary eyes. Knowing that his Bro is out there and safe was all that he needed. He doesn’t need to see him. He could live with it. 

So they all leave, leaving all the Bodies and the remains of their friends with one last goodbye. They pack up their supplies and leave, heading back the way they came. John stays in Dave’s arms with help from Equius, weighing him down but keeping him strong enough to keep walking back up the road.  
Rose asks about the boxes when they come to the place where the Bodies first attacked them. The cart is gone, and a few flattened boxes litter the ground.  
“We didn’t even know what was in them.” Jade says. Rose walks over to one of the flattened ones on the ground, obviously crushed by a Body’s foot by the claw marks that scratch through it.  
“Is there anything inside?” Vriska asks.  
Rose bends down to it.  
“Let’s see what he was talking about.” Dave knows Karkat’s talking about Bro. Dave adjusts John in his arms as he looks anywhere but to the people around him.  
Rose lifts up the crushed box, and opens the broken flap. There’s the sound of glass clinking. Dave watches as she reaches inside and pulls out a few stained test tubes and beakers, some dripping with a sickly red liquid. Rose puts it to her nose, and then physically jerks away from it.  
“It’s blood.” She announces.  
“…the hell?” Karkat comes up next to her. He takes a piece of broken glass from her fingers and sniffs it as well.  
“Why the fuck would Strider tell us to risk our lives for science shit filled with blood?”  
“Well, Karkat, maybe the ‘science shit’ part is important. But why wouldn’t they let us know what was in these boxes?”  
“What if it’s part of the cure,” Dave shouts over. They all turn to him. Feferi looks cautiously toward him.  
“Did your brother-“  
“No,” Dave snaps. “But I watched enough shit movies with John to know that in every zombie story, someone’s always trying to find a cure.”  
They’re all quiet. Rose puts the glass in her pocket.  
“Well, it’s no use to us now. I’ll ask General Egbert when we get back.” They all turn toward John, who’s sleeping soundly, his head against Dave’s chest as Dave holds him up.  
“Yeah, I’m too tired to think about it now.” Jade murmurs, and Karkat comes rushing over to her and smoothes her hair back from her face. Dave agrees. He’s too exhausted to think about the blood in the beaker. The boxes were just another thing to worry about. His main focus is the boy sleeping in his arms.

Within the next five days, they only encounter a few lone Bodies, that they kill off easily. As they snow continues to fall, they all sleep in two tents instead of spread out on the ground. John claims he can walk on the third day, but only for short periods of time before he’s woozy. He’s lost a lot of blood, the wounds on him thankfully not so deep as to make him bleed out. He’s rewrapped with gauze until they run out, leaving Dave’s stitches to itch and ache after carrying John all this way. But he keeps moving, step after step, because that’s what he’s trained to do. He walks until his feet kill and then he stays up through the night on watch, talking and listening to stories about life in the ally camp. They never talk about his Bro, but Dave is at ease with it. When he isn’t, he just takes one look a John and remembers why he doesn’t need to find Bro right now.  
Jade raises her arms in an X above her head early in the morning of the fifth day, and Dave nearly starts crying. They were out of food since the last night, freezing and exhausted, but suddenly the Wall is in sight, the guns are aimed at them and they’re questioned as to who they are.  
“And who are they,” a guard shouts, jutting his gun toward Karkat and the others.  
“We’re from a camp in the city.” The officers look to each other, mouths open in shock, before they come to meet them. A group of doctors pry John from Dave’s hands and Dave almost falls with how tired he is. Another doctor looks at Dave’s arm, his coat slipping down his shoulder, and rushes for a nurse. They’re ushered through the Wall, Vriska grinning while looking around her, Nepeta quiet but smiling at Dave. When Dave next sees them, its two days later and they’re wrapped in blankets, soup being fed to their malnourished lips.  
Dave is properly stitched, Kanaya thanked for saving him from infection, and he’s given a day to recover from all the other injuries that he didn’t even know he had. Jade’s broken leg is put in a real splint two hospital beds over. Karkat doesn’t leave her side, and practically growls at anyone who comes near.  
Feferi keeps talking to the nurses, organizing the ways she could become one. Equius and Nepeta stay at the hospital as well, taking care of Nepeta’s concussion and helping the nurses take care of the intensive care patients. Dave sees them so often when he’s staying in the hospital that it’s almost like it’s always been this way.  
All of the allies are questioned by police, asked questions of where they’re from and how they came into relations with the Hunters. The allies easily give up their story, and even spill the part where Bro Strider told them to take the Hunt’s packages for their own. Dave eavesdrops on the group of officers after that. They’re organizing a group of Hunters to go to the city in a week to try to contact his brother.

Right after Dave is let out of hospital, Rose, Kanaya and Dave plan to sit down with Mr. Egbert to talk about the boxes. At first, they’re escorted out by two soldiers after being told it’s classified, but Dave only has to say who he is to be let inside. He hasn’t seen John’s dad yet since he got back, stuck in the hospital recovering. Now, he’s behind a desk, filling out papers. When he sees them come through the door, John’s Dad stands, starting to beam under his hat. Kanaya and Rose follow in through the door, clicking it closed. Mr. Egbert looks past Dave and toward Rose.  
“Miss Lalonde, glad to have you back. And Kanaya Maryam, welcome to the Settlement.” He comes around his desk and pulls them both into a crushing hug. After, he looks at Dave.  
“Welcome home.” He makes a point of hugging his right side, leaving his stitched arm untouched. “You’re a strong young man.” Dave doesn’t know why that hurts. Maybe it’s just his arm.  
“Well,” Rose prompts, “We’re here to talk about the boxes.” Mr. Egbert frowns.  
“We lost them.” Dave says. Rose places a piece of broken glass on the table. Dave stares at it, then looks to see the general’s reaction. Outside, the snow begins to fall again.  
Mr. Egbert looks up, a small smile on his lips.  
“So I heard. John told me all about it.”  
“They let you see John?” Dave squeaks. He hasn’t been able to even go near the infirmary.  
“The boxes were crushed, and I found this in the remains.” Rose continues.  
“We want to know what exactly were in those packages.” Kanaya says.  
“And why we weren’t supposed to ask what they are.”  
Mr. Egbert puts his hands behind his back.  
“There’s a reason for that. It’s confidential.”  
“Oh, come on.” Dave whines. He’s sick of this. Of all of this. “I just spent the last eight days almost getting killed, on multiple occasions. All to try to get these things back here. I thought that becoming a Hunter was becoming a part of this Settlement. Yet I’m not allowed to know what they are!?” Dave feels his face go hot, staring into the face under the hat.  
Half a minute later, he’s staring at the snow outside, while Kanaya paces back and forth. Mr. Egbert kicked them out, and Rose forgot her sample of the glass on his desk. After chastising herself for it, she now stands next to Dave and watches Kanaya.  
“Oh, we’ll get our answer,” Kanaya is saying softly, mostly to herself, and Dave thinks about the way Mr. Egbert looked as the officers came to take them out of the station. Dave puts his hood of his sweatshirt up once he’s sick of the snowflakes wetting his hair. He waits for Kanaya to get bored with her pacing, making her own small trail in the snow.

Dave rolls over and looks at his phone. It’s four in the morning and he cannot sleep. It’s been ten whole days since he was sewn back together by a doctor in a white room. Six days since John came out of the hospital and back home. And three days since a group of police Hunters left to go find Bro Strider. Vriska left with them, wearing her new official jacket, as their guide to the city. Mr. Egbert still hasn’t allowed them to come back and question the blood, or the beakers, or the boxes. Kanaya’s still trying to plead her case. Dave still tries to bring it up when John isn’t in the room.  
Dave sits up, rubbing his sleepless eyes. His feet find the floor, and he stops by his dresser to grab his shades before he leaves. His fingers hover, pausing. He doesn’t need them now, does he? He opens his door, peering out tentatively. He was right, Mr. Egbert left on another business call. Poor guy. Dave scoots down the hall and knocks twice on the door. Only seconds later John opens it, shirt missing and wrapped with bandages around his center. His hair is pointing in all directions, his bruising still green on his shoulders, and he looks like shit. Dave beams at him.  
“Can’t sleep.”  
“Me either.” John closes his bedroom door behind him. “I was thinking about Eridan tonight.” Dave purses his lips, feeling his heart grow heavy.  
“I miss him.” Dave says.  
“I miss them all,” whispers John, looking right at him. Dave moves his hand from John’s forearm to his wrist.  
“Me too.” He interlaces their fingers and then glances down just to make sure that they’re still alive, that this is all real. That this is his life, now.  
“You want to watch a movie or something?” John asks moments later. Dave reaches over and pecks his forehead.  
“Yeah man. Let’s pull an all-nighter.” John gives a tiny smile through his half-closed lids. He then leads them downstairs, moves them to the couch, puts on a extremely shitty action movie, and tries to sit down without hissing through his teeth with pain. Dave holds him when he sits down, wishing he didn’t have that gauze, or the slashes and bruises on his skin to begin with. He wishes he didn’t have to think about the things that did this to him.

But as they fall asleep, explosions shooting balls of fire at his tired eyes on the television, Dave tries to imagine a world without bodies. A world where he could really hold John close and not worry about hurting him. A place where he and his brother could sit, maybe talk about something other than how cruel the world is to them. A place where all his friends were there and happy and eating all the fresh bread and apples they could possibly want all year round. It’s hard, especially now. But with his head resting on top of John’s, he does imagine it when he closes his eyes. Somehow.


End file.
